


Episode 905: Time Is Gonna Come

by agelade



Series: Lustra: A Supernatural Season 9 AU [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Memory Loss, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agelade/pseuds/agelade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode 5 in Lustra, a Supernatural Season 9 AU. With Sam back in action, the boys take on a hunt: there's a girl, there's a bad guy, and of course there's some danger. But can Dean keep his head in the game when all he can think about is Abaddon's phone call?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. I know it’s been a while, over a month! School started back up, and this semester is a workshop semester; I have to produce actual pages of prose and apparently they want it to be like… good. I’ve been spending my creative currency in that venue lately. But! Without further delay, here’s episode five!

** **

**Episode Five**  
" **Time is Gonna Come"  
Chapter One**

_**THEN** _

" _We got good news yesterday, in case you forgot. Your little brother doesn't have to die to close the gates. We figure out what his greatest sacrifice is, close the gates, he gets better, no one dies. But you're what, sad because for like an hour he didn't_ love _you?"_

_..._

_A thump of something onto his bed, the zip of his backpack or duffel, rummaging, and then a lid was being screwed off of something and Dean opened his eyes a slit to see Sam with his back to him, arm up as he downed a shot of something, and-_

_..._

_"Who are the others?"_

_Who are the others... in Sam's head? Lucifer, and Cas maybe. Along with Sam. And now John Dee. Clearly it was too much for Sam's noggin, because blood came trickling down from his nose in a sudden thick dark stripe and Dean's heart seized up._

_"You must discover their true names. The Wise Men. The doers of Good and Evil. You must. You are on the path." Sam's face actually showed an emotion then, as the ghost of John Dee beseeched Dean to pursue whatever his own unfinished business was that kept him tied to earth._

_..._

_Death shrugs, smiles at him like a grandfather. "It means, short of letting him die, Sam's already living his best case scenario, and that's with you, broken head and all. He's the Job of his generation, Dean. He's lucky to have you. As I recall, Job had no one by the end."_

_**NOW** _

"You know, I hauled that big-ass desk upstairs for a reason."

Sam didn't even look up from the notepad he was scribbling in, at the conference table in the war room. "I'm fine, Dean."

Dean swigged from his bottle, stayed put in the doorway from the kitchen. He watched Sam tap at his laptop, write another thing down. Kid had been working non-stop in the week since the surprise birthday thing, he seemed better, ish. No need, Dean thought, to bring up the whole Abaddon thing. Not yet. Not when Sam was just starting to feel better. Yeah. Give him another nice full week of feeling good before dropping that bomb, if it even needed to be dropped.

Because the answer to Abaddon's little offer was no. Always no. In fact, it did not bear thinking about.

"Where're the kids?"

Sam frowned into space. "Uh... Kevin's out getting groceries with Crowley. Cas is... I think he's with that angel lady, actually."

Dean's brows went up in surprise, as much at the prophet and demon palling around as he was at Cas' bull by the horns approach to human sex-ed. "I hope you gave Cas the birds and bees, dude."

"I thought you did that on your wild, wacky trip to the friendly neighborhood brothel."

Whoa, with the hostility. But then again, he'd spent that whole trip laughing at Cas' antics and making light of how long it'd been since he'd had fun with Sam, while Sam had apparently been dream-tripping Lucifer, working in a bar somewhere. Kid was probably jealous. And of course, that moment was sorta permanently carved into his memory, Sam saying he'd go off on his own, get straight, so serious, and looking back it was clear that it had been a test, a test Dean had failed; Sam had wanted him to fight, Sam had wanted Dean to tell him he didn't want him to go.

And the problem was that, at the time, Dean had been so pissed and disappointed, he hadn't even cared. He saw it was a test even then, and he just hadn't had the energy. Hoo boy, okay. Subject change.

"Kevin and Crowley, huh?"

Sam shrugged. "Kevin's a good kid, Dean. He isn't like us."

"What, like he's not jaded like us? He hasn't been completely screwed over a thousand times, like us?"

Sam's face was unreadable for a moment, then he sighed and went back to his notebook. "Yeah, something like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" And he hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory, but he saw the set of Sam's shoulders stiffen up and well, fuck, fine.

"Nothing. Listen, we got a call. I think we have a case."

"A case? You just got out of that sling like yesterday."

"Which means I'm good to go," Sam said.

"Then we can investigate the men from the Federal BI?" Cas said, coming in from the library.

"The... What?" Sam said.

"Jesus, Cas."

"The F is for 'federal'," Cas informed Sam. He took a seat at the conference table and looked at Dean. "The F is for 'federal.'"

"Uh," Sam said, and he nearly looked like he was about to laugh, so you know, little victories. "Yeah, we know. Listen-"

"They took you, Sam. And you." Cas looked at Dean but it was brief, turned his attention back to Sam. Yeah, Cas didn't spare much more than a glance his way anymore, and while yeah, okay, Dean was more or less pissed at him for virtually everything he'd ever done, the last thing he wanted was this intense OCD angel-focus on his little brother.

"Cas, we looked into this, man," Dean said. "We couldn't find anyone in town who fit your description-"

"But we _did_ get nailed in wherever, on the way to Boston," Sam said. "And Feds took our files, and broke into my computer, _and_ there were all those cops waiting for us at the mausoleum."

"Death said Enoch had protection. Maybe that's all it was," Dean said.

"Enoch had _government_ protection?"

Dean shrugged.

"Okay... then why did they let us go so easily?" Sam shifted. "I don't - really remember that much."

"No shit," Dean said. "You were uh... pretty out of it." Sam looked at him, expectant. "Look, I told you, dude. They let me sweat for a few hours, then the Fed came and asked me some questions, then they took me to you, and we got out of there."

"That reminds me. We have the key, right?" Sam asked.

"Y...eah? Why?"

"Because Death wanted Enoch for a reason, and I want to figure out what my life cost us, or the world, or whatever."

"Whatever it was-"

"It was worth it, sure. Whatever. But we should probably try to figure out what's coming."

"Why does something have to be coming?"

Sam looked at him, like _seriously?_ and said, "Uh, because we're involved? And because nothing is free? And since when do I have to tell you that? We both know what it means to make a deal, man. You made this deal with Death, and we need to deal with the fallout. I, for one, would like a heads-up this time."

"Okay, okay, sheesh."

Cas nodded. "So the Federal-"

"FBI, Cas. Just FBI, okay?" Dean said. "And yeah, fine, whatever. But we can't exactly investigate them, can we. We'll have to just be on the look out. And we will, okay?" Dean caught Cas' eye, waited for him to nod. "Hey, I thought you were hanging out with that angel chick-"

"Lethaniel. We were... 'hanging out.' Yes, that's accurate."

"Uh..."

Dean looked at Sam, saw the flush creeping up his neck, grinned. "You mean _you_ were hanging out. Right?"

"Uh... yes. For a moment."

"Oh my god," Sam groaned.

"And then I was not-"

"Oh my _god_." Sam put his head down on the table, buried his face in his arms.

Cas looked at him in alarm. "Are you all right, Sam?"

Dean laughed. "I'm glad _someone_ is getting some on the regular."

"Yes, it has been very regular. My vessel- er, body - appears to be able to engage in copulation approximately once every three hours or so. Lethaniel's vessel may engage in copulation whenever she desires it." He tilted his head in thought. "It seems unfair. It is very different from angel intercourse."

Dean raised a brow. "I thought you didn't knock boots."

"I said I hadn't had occasion. It does happen."

"Guys. We have a case-" Sam said.

"Sure you're up for that?"

Sam didn't look up, but his tone was stern. " _Yes_. Unless _you_ don't want to work for some reason."

Dean frowned. He hadn't actually thought about it much, beyond a fleeting thought that maybe _Sam_ had wanted to hunt, which he clearly did. And yeah, okay, maybe a part of him, a large part, wanted to get his machete sunk deep into some fugly's neck, sure. But another part of him couldn't help but picture Sam chained up in a dungeon, and the pumping adrenaline, and the singing in his muscles, and the memory carved into his bones, the satisfaction, the pleasure of creating pain-

But uh.

"Course I wanna hunt," he said. Drank his beer. Needed something stronger. "I'm just-"

"Worried about me. Nothing changes." Sam rolled his eyes and looked so exasperated and refocused on his laptop like the petulant little brother and Dean grinned, okay, just a little.

"Damn right, it doesn't. So what do we got?"

"Came in on the landline - we still don't know how that number got out, huh?"

Dean shrugged. "When Henry tried to make a call on my cell phone, he asked for the operator."

Sam chewed on a lip, in thought. "So someone updated the system after Henry vanished-"

"But everyone died."

"Except Larry."

"Blind Larry took the time to update the bunker's telephone lines after everyone was dead?"

Sam shrugged. They were quiet a moment.

"Anyway," Sam said. "The call came in-" He thumbed at the phone on the wall over by the massive ancient communications station. "A girl named Erica, says she found her brother wandering the streets, missing his memory."

Dean lifted a brow, drank. "What's supernatural about that?"

"Doctors can't find anything medically wrong with him, Erica says he's been steadily losing more. Kid says someone 'took' his memories."

"Kids say the darnedest things," Dean said. He shook his head. Sam was _literally_ a day out of that sling, probably too early considering what the doctor had said - taking Sam into town had been a trick, yeah, but the doc had been real, had said some stuff about how poorly Sam was healing not just the shoulder, but the black eye, the brittle bone, the hairline fracture, the flutter he heard in Sam's heart, and maybe the worst thing was how absent Sam had been the whole time, following simple instructions but completely checked out of the whole thing. Sam had no idea how beat up he really was.

"I don't know, Sammy-"

"She's desperate, Dean. She offered to pay us. It's two hours away. We need to check this out."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. I guess I can get behind someone worried about her little brother. God knows I know what that's like."

Sam knit his brows and gave him this _look_. "He's her _older_ brother, Dean. You guys don't have the monopoly on desperate, okay?"

"Okay, sheesh." Dean blew out a breath, but Amelia's words rang around in his head: _so he's been fighting back?_ and he just had to take Sam's bitchfest as a good sign. "So how'd we get on her radar?"

"Said her uncle told her we could help. I never heard of the guy. Russell Etole ring a bell to you?"

Dean shook his head. "Not even a little. Okay, we're burning daylight. If we leave now, we can get a room and start right and early in the am. Get your stuff together, you can fill me in on the rest in the car."

* * *

"Thanks, Kevin. I'll let you know if I find anything." Sam hung up the phone and sighed at the road, twenty minutes now out of Beatrice, Nebraska. He didn't drive anymore. Once upon a time, they had taken turns, but now there was too much risk that he'd have a dizzy spell and run them into a tree.

So why was he rushing them into a hunt?

Sam glanced over at Dean, saw him smiling there, singing softly to the music, tapping on his steering wheel. He pressed the gas, and maybe it was the trials power singing in Sam's blood, but he thought he could feel the rush of the road traveling from the rumbling engine up into Dean's foot, his leg, his body, energizing him.

Dean needed the road. Why the hunt? For the look on Dean's face, for the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel, for that old carefree Dean who never deserved a weight like Sam around his neck. Despite the ache, Sam smiled a little.

"What?"

Sam blinked, cleared his throat. "Uh, Kevin says they're working on a sort of spiritual prophylactic-"

"Ghost condom?"

"Uh, basically. I told him the basic area of the archives to look in, and I've got some of my notes here. It's been done before, but this case is a little special. We need the spirit to have _some_ power, or else the key won't be able to light up the photographs. But we have to protect Kevin from possession. And we know tattoos won't work."

"And why is that again?"

Sam got the distinct impression that Dean didn't care so much as he was just trying to engage Sam in conversation he thought Sam would enjoy. Fine. Sam would bite. He watched the lights of the small town approach them against the black starry sky.

"Demons and angels, stuff we can ward against - they aren't human. Okay, demons started out that way, but they are physically and spiritually different from humans. Our souls are- different."

"Different enough that it took an eight hour blood ritual to get Crowley even as close to human as he is now."

Sam nodded, shrugged off the lingering sting of failure. "But ghosts are just manifestations of human souls. It's a thousand times more difficult to protect against them, because our bodies are their natural hosts. Usually it doesn't matter; it takes a _lot_ of energy for a ghost to possess someone, usually on the order of a vengeful spirit kind of manifestation-"

"Okay. Glad I asked."

"If you didn't want to know-"

"How do you even know all this?"

"It's all ghost physics, basically."

"Right," Dean said. He pulled the car into a parking lot and scanned the sparse population of cars. "Okay, we're here. Why don't you go get us a room, and I'll unload the trunk-"

"I can unload the trunk, Dean."

Dean turned to him, that _look_ on his face. "Don't get pissy with me, dude. I know you can. This isn't about that."

"Well then what's it about, Dean?"

Dean stared at him, then laughed just once. He put the car into park and said, as they got out, "I'm trying to be nice to you, Sam- Don't give me that face. I'm not saying I'm being a nice guy by not rubbing your face in crap. I'm saying, I'm trying to ... to help you. But if you wanna be a little bitch about it-"

" _Help_ me?"

Dean looked at Sam over the roof of the car like they were a completely different pair of brothers, brothers who'd never called each other weak or unreliable or untrustworthy or undeserving. Like he was shocked Sam might have some trouble believing him.

"Yeah, dude. Maybe you missed it, but you just got over a serious case of the crazies, and you've still got the Flu from hell. Er, heaven. Whatever. I know you can unload the car, dude. You think I'd even let you _near_ a hunt otherwise?"

"Wait, _let_ me-?"

Dean shook his head, put his hands up in surrender. "Fine. Whatever. I'm just trying to help you. Carry whatever you want."

Sam leaned against the car. And even though his blood boiled at the insinuation that he needed Dean's permission, that Dean would condescend to _help_ him- he had to admit that even the argument had taken his breath from him. "Dean, wait."

Dean rustled around in the trunk, cursing under his breath. Probably looking for their most reliable IDs and the least battered credit card. Or just making a show of being pissed. Whatever. Sam took a step. "Dean, man-" And cascaded into a coughing fit that had him grabbing the backdoor handle for support.

A moment later, Dean's boots entered his field of vision, Dean's warm heavy hand on his back - _a balm, it had always been a balm, if only Dean had known how the coughing stopped as soon as his hand was on Sam's back, Sam thought Dean might never have let him go_ \- Sam caught his breath and stood back up, leaned against the car.

"I got this stuff," Dean said, but his eyes were hard, glittered in the streetlights. He shoved Sam's bag at him. "You can get us a room _and_ carry your own shit." And he was stomping back round to the trunk to load up his arms.

Sam blew out a breath. Shouldered his bag, headed with the credit card and matching ID to the front office and it occurred to him about halfway across the parking lot that his bag was a lot lighter, that the can of salt had been removed, that his box of shells didn't sit heavy in the bottom, that there were no bony spines of books jutting from anywhere, and at first the anger came hot and he whirled to storm back over to Dean and tell him not to touch his stuff, tell him that he could be trusted with a gun, but the world spun, just a little. Not enough to tilt him over. Just enough to remind him.

That this pack was his and he was carrying it, but he didn't have to carry everything, even if it belonged to him in the end. That Dean hadn't taken his only means of defense, and what he had taken, he'd just borrowed for a while, so that Sam didn't have to carry more than he had to. That when it came down to it, Dean was always going to at least _try_ to take on whatever of Sam's he could.

That he knew better, okay, that accepting help didn't mean you were weak. Hadn't he told Dean that a million times?

He met Dean at the room and slid the keycard into the door. Dean had everything except Sam's lightened load, and Sam found that he was grateful.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder on his way to the bathroom. It hurt, a good kind of hurt, a robust, _you can take this_ kind of hurt. Dean must have seen him smiling. "Done being a little bitch?" he said, and Sam rolled his eyes.

He woke up to Dean shaking him. Swallowed tang out of his mouth, washed a hand over his face, jaw, blinked into the light.

"Get up and get ready for bed, Goliath. It's too soon to sleep in your clothes. We haven't even killed anything yet."

"Was I - Did I-?" Dean was looking at him like he was trying to translate Sam into English. Sam started again. "I wasn't dreaming?"

Dean raised a brow, came over to him as he rubbed a towel through his hair, looked concerned. "No, why? I mean, were you?"

Sam searched his memory. He felt light. He felt like nothing. He raised his brows back at Dean, surprised. "No. I guess I wasn't."

"I take it from your amazement we're calling that a good thing?"

Sam breathed a laugh. "Yeah. A really good thing."

Dean nodded. "Good. Oh, Kevin called. Says he's got a lead on your ghostly rubber, but you need to sort through some stuff to ... blah blah blah. Call him back yadda yadda."

Sam sat up blinking, nodding. "Yeah, yeah I will." He yawned. Dean hit him in the face with a dry towel. "Thanks."

"I'll order grub. Triple deep fried beef burger with extra bacon, right?"

"Gross, Dean." Dean laughed and perused the take-out menu, and before Sam closed the door to the bathroom, he said, "Dean, you know 'prophylactic' just means protection from-"

Dean looked up. The warm smile stopped Sam from finishing his thought. Dean winked. "I know what it means, Sammy."

* * *

Tuesdays had become movie nights. None of them had jobs, which was a perk, Kevin guessed, for having no friends and no life.

But movie nights weren't a perk, not anymore. Not now that Cas was snuggled with Lethaniel on the big couch and Crowley was glaring daggers, muttering about vultures and other bird-related things. And Kevin couldn't even focus on the movie - The Big Lebowski, which he'd never seen but had been told it was a classic - because he was constantly trying to work out a ritual in his head for a ghost shield. It was almost like math - actually, it was _really_ like math, because math had been like a second language to him once upon a time when things like that had mattered. But now, tablets and codes were like a second language to him, and he was working out that math in his head even as Jeff Daniels or Bridges or whoever that was walked around in a bathrobe sounding totally stoned.

He needed help. He pulled out his phone and wrote a text.

_You got a sex?_

A moment later, his phone pinged and he laughed out loud and texted back: _AUTOCORRECT Jeez. But yeah, I need help with a spell._

Charlie was cool. Kevin had talked with her a little at Sam's party. She was into some of the same stuff he was, and she was gay, so he didn't have to try to flirt or anything, but he could still notice that her hair smelled nice, and that was... nice. She understood his videogame references and he understood her tv show references, exchanges he couldn't hope to have with Sam or Dean.

Well, maybe Sam, but that he didn't seem to have any interest in that kind of small talk. Everything was "big talk" for Sam, or more often "no talk," and Kevin wondered if it had always been that way, or if it had changed after he'd gone to hell, or if it had changed with the trials, or-

A ping. Charlie's leet speak sounded excited to be doing magic.

He texted her a couple of questions, trusted her google-fu where his own eyes were overtired. She told him how the movie ended when he questioned the accuracy of her "precious stones" research. But wiki wasn't a good source, okay, even if she had followed up on the footnoted references.

By the time he was telling her she'd remembered the end of the movie wrong, they'd figured out a basic idea for something that might protect him from getting possessed by the ghost of John Dee, and by the time he'd figured out that she'd trolled him about the ending just to mess with him, they'd worked out some latin. The rest, he'd have to work out himself, or check with Sam.

"Movie's over, munchkin. You can stop diddling your doodle." Crowley eyebrowed suggestively at Kevin's hands in his lap.

Kevin rolled his eyes _hard_ and pulled his phone up. "I'm texting."

"Sure. Hey what's your number, pet? I want to be able to send you naughty selfies."

"Screw off, Crowley," Kevin said, but it was without heat. They'd been shopping together, and there was something about that ordinary task that had kind of shelved a lot of Kevin's crap. Basically, if he thought of Crowley as something entirely different from old-Crowley, it was much easier to not want to murder him in steaming bloodrage every five seconds.

Another ping. He read the text. "No way."

"What."

"Apparently there are these books?"

"Oh. Oh." The look on Crowley's face was rapturous. "Yes. Indeed there are. Come my little dumpling-"

"Are they really about everything they did for like five years?"

"Oh yes, all the gritty nitty-"

"Uh. That's. Creepy. I'm not reading that." He looked at the phone. Texted Charlie back.

_Maybe I'll check them out. But I'm not really into that kind of stuff, so. And I have to live here._

She pinged back that it was his loss, and she gave him a kind of creepy vibe and asked him for details about what Cas and Lethaniel looked like on the couch and okay, he couldn't be choosey with his friends, and she was super nice and interesting, so. He texted her a brief goodbye, claiming he needed to call Sam with what they'd figured out. Not even a lie.

* * *

Sam got out of the shower and wanted to face-plant, but he overheard Dean talking and stopped at the door. Dean stopped, there was a moment. Sam turned on the water in the sink and waited, and Dean went on, apparently satisfied that Sam was still primping in the bathroom.

"Uh huh. About how often?" he was saying. A long pause, and Dean said, "Dude, you know that's not normal, right?" and Sam realized he was on the phone. "Just because, Cas- No. Aw man no I don't wanna talk about that-"

Yeah. Okay. No more hiding in the bathroom like a coward. Sam opened the door and came out in a towel, rubbing another one through his hair. "Talk about what?"

"Nothing."

"Uh huh." He watched Dean, stood there and dripped on the floor and watched him, because if Dean was going to do this song and dance about Sam having to keep on living, if he expected Sam to figure out how to do that, he was going to damned well do it on his own terms.

Dean rolled his eyes, went to the table to set the phone down, hit the speaker. "Cas, I got Sammy here. We need to all have a little chat."

" _Is this about the drinking?_ "

"Yeah, kinda. Listen." Dean took and blew out a breath. "Cards on the table here."

Sam lifted a brow in concern, question, because cards on the table? Meant one or the other shoe was about to drop.

Dean grinned at him; Sam recognized it as his _play it off, no one knows nothin'_ face. "Call it sympathy chick flick pains. You're in therapy, _I'm_ in therapy." He turned a shit-eating grin to the phone and said, "It's called solidarity."

Sam sighed. "I'm not 'in therapy,' Dean. It's just..." He shrugged. "Medicine. I'm not interested in talking. Not to her." He still wasn't sure whether he missed Amelia or her hair or her body or her smile or whether he was glad she was gone or upset that he had to see her again in a few weeks, or-

"Fine. Whatever. But listen, I just want to check something. Back when Zachariah was messing with us, you know, you'd gone off to work in some bar or something. Right before we met back up-"

" _We were visiting a brothel_ ," Cas supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, I remember," Sam said. He turned away toward his bed, toward his duffel, he put a hand out to steady himself on the mattress. He remembered. And now he thought he knew what had triggered this little attempt at an emotional full monty from Dean. They'd just been talking about this, about Dean and Cas' little happy funtime, Dean letting Sam go without so much as a _let's talk about this_. And while they'd been off reenacting the 4,000 Year Old Virgin, Sam had been finding out about Lucifer and forced to drink demon blood and there'd been a girl who might have liked him before she found out he was a monster - but Dean didn't know those last parts, and he had no idea what Dean was getting at, bringing that whole crapfest up again. "What about it?" He busied himself with sorting through for a shirt.

"Zachariah showed me the future."

Sam shrugged, pulled a clean v-neck over his head. "So? We've changed whatever it was."

" _Dean, Zachariah would have shown you anything in order to_ -"

"I know, I know. He's a real dick. But I just have to check, okay? The future he showed me, it's only like a year away. And you were human, Cas. And you were acting... _really_ human."

" _I was engaging in intercourse, you mean._ "

"Full on orgies, dude."

" _I don't believe I would engage in orgies, Dean_."

"Yeah, and regular human dudes don't do it every three hours, either."

"Where was I in this future?" Sam asked.

"Man, Zach would have showed me anything, like Cas said-"

"Dean. Where was I?"

Sam knew - the look on Dean's face, and he knew. Zachariah had showed Dean a future in which Sam said yes to Lucifer, and Dean must have caught the moment Sam figured it out, because he didn't try to sugar-coat it, which was kind of a relief.

"He gotcha man. In that timeline, he'd been wearing you for a few years, and the city was a wreck - the _world_ was a wreck, and - I hadn't found you again after we split up back then-"

" _That's_ why you agreed to meet back up with me," Sam realized. He turned toward his duffel, turned his back on Dean, so he could hide the sting of the realization. How stupid could he be? Dean, choosing out of the blue to meet back up with him? Of course it was all about Dean trying to stop him from doing something terrible. Of course it hadn't been about something so trivial as _missing him_ or _loving him_. Sam felt sick, stupid.

"Listen, dude," Dean said. "He was messing with me, okay? Zach tried to drive us apart by showing me a future where I didn't say yes to Michael and the world burned. But you gotta know that all I heard was, 'you belong with your brother.'"

Sam nodded, but didn't look up. Dean was good at the little speeches. In the church, in Boston, in Sam's bedroom. But it didn't mean anything other than _I was cursed with you as a brother, and I'm dedicated to that hopeless, pointless task of keeping you alive._ "Right, well. You never did learn what anyone tried to teach you."

Dean frowned at him. Whatever, Dean.

" _If you're worried that that could still happen_ ," Cas said, " _I can assure you I will engage in no orgies_."

Dean chuckled briefly. "I don't think that's the linchpin in this mess, Cas, but thanks for the sacrifice play."

Cas was right, Sam realized, and that meant - "You're worried Lucifer could get free." He looked up at Dean, could almost see the ghost of Lucifer carving away Dean's face from his skull.

Dean's voice when he spoke again was soft, that soft growl of concern. "But it's not possible, right? Cas?"

" _There are many Seals remaining. Only sixty-six of them were required to open the cage. But the final Seal is already broken and cannot be broken again_."

"Lilith wouldn't be the first person to come back to life," Dean said.

" _Who would bring her back?_ " Cas asked. " _We are all here because God wanted it. I'm certain of that_."

"Lucifer said he'd just bring me back over and over again if I killed myself to escape him," Sam supplied.

"You threatened to kill yourself?" Dean said. "When was the last time you _didn't_ want to die? Jesus-"

"What do you expect, man? Yeah, I would rather have died than say yes to him. Don't forget that I did it anyway, okay?"

"Oh, I'm not forgetting - apparently there are a _lot_ of fates worth than death for you-"

"Dean. I'm not doing this with you right now. My point is that if Lucifer could get out using the Seals again, he'd have resurrected Lilith already and we'd have been out minutes after I jumped us in. There's no way out. I'm telling you." His hands shook and he tried to hide them by pulling his duffel over and looking for jeans, but Dean sighed heavy and Sam knew he'd failed. He felt faint. He felt the rapid thump of his heart like a parasite. He blinked hard at his bag. Because.

Dean said, "Okay, settle down. I'm just trying to make sure, Jesus."

Sam didn't reply, just kept staring at the yawning mouth of a bag which emptied into black.

"Because if he did get out," Dean said, and Sam lifted his head.

"I know." Sam blinked, heavy, eyes glassed. "I know. I've already said yes."

" _No harm will come to you, Sam_ ," Cas said. " _Lucifer is shut tight in the cage, and I have been connecting Lethaniel and her company with my old command, and they will follow her lead when it comes to your safety. Do not fear. We would protect you to our deaths if it became necessary. But it won't. Become necessary_."

"Uh. Thanks Cas."

"Yeah, thanks," Dean said. "Listen, I gotta go. I'll call you later."

Sam stood from his bed, dumped his duffel out and sorted through the clothing, numb. To his credit, Dean glanced up but didn't get up to help him. If he marked Sam's progress with narrowed eyes, if his knuckles went white where they gripped the arm of the chair he sat in, ready to spring into action, if those hard lines in his face suddenly reappeared after a drive in the car to a job had smoothed them out, all because Sam couldn't keep his feet under him - well. Sam was pretending those things didn't bother him, remember? He was trying to remember how not to give up. He remembered being good at that, some 200 years ago.

He fished around in his bag, giving his shaking hands something to do besides send alarms through his brother sitting there on alert. But god he was tired, and his body ached, and of course he hadn't forgotten that the trials had been a difficult business, but with Lucifer and the sleeplessness and everything, this overall general feeling of just being nothing, just dragging himself from moment to moment, this constant ache and hunger and sick and the rattle in his chest of failing lungs and starving swollen heart - it'd been overshadowed. And now it was almost worse, because it was all there was.

"Sam?"

Sam closed his eyes, realized he'd stopped sorting through his duffel, had just been standing there, swaying, and he said, "I'm fine."

"Sure you are." Dean was suddenly right beside him. Sam hadn't noticed him move. His hand on Sam's back, stopping the coughing fit before it'd even started. And Lucifer in his memory had vanished, and Dean's vision wasn't going to happen, because Lilith was already dead. And.

Dean pushed at his shoulder. Sam flopped onto his bed, one leg draped awkwardly over his duffel. He felt half-asleep already, and then he felt the duffel get yanked out from under him, and a hand on his forehead, and heard the click of a light switch and it was dark and a blanket draped over him but he was laying on a blanket so it must have been Dean's and-

* * *

Dean sighed. "G'night, Sammy."

Sam was asleep practically before Dean could get a blanket over him. Still soaking wet, wearing only a tee shirt and a damp towel, and he felt warm to the touch and his hands shook; his teeth chattered, and Dean thought he didn't even realize it. He patted Sam's chest, prodded his shoulder just a little and watched Sam's face for signs of discomfort. Sleeping Sam was a lot more open about things like that. But he only made an annoyed sound and resettled, and Dean smiled.

Sam was right. Lucifer was shut up in a cage. There was no escaping. The only two people who had ever gotten someone out of the cage - Cas and Death - were on _their_ side.

Dean's phone rang. Cas calling him back, wanting more advice on pleasuring women - and there'd been a time Dean had been more than willing to dispense such advice, but now the knowledge that Cas was actually _using_ it gave him the heebs. He snatched up his phone before it could ring again and potentially wake the sleeping sasquatch and said, "Cas, what-"

" _Try again, sweetie_ ," came the sultry feminine voice on the other end.

Dean reined himself in, threw a look at Sam. He was definitely out cold. Still. "What do you want," he hissed, letting himself out of the front door of the motel room. He stalked into the parking lot, some urge to get this conversation as far from Sam as possible.

" _I gave you a week to make up your mind. I need an answer._ "

"The answer's the same sweetheart. No. Uh uh. Get bent. Not a chance. Fuck off. Is that clear enough for you?"

There was a concerned sigh. " _I have to say, I'm surprised. I thought you do anything to keep Sam safe-"_

"I am keeping him safe. And _we_ are done with demons."

" _Yeah? Then what's with the pet salesman?_ "

"That's - different."

" _Because Sam said so, right? Come on, Dean. We both know you left your own moral code behind long ago. If it's for Sam, you'll do anything. Don't try to pretend. We want the same thing here._ "

Dean strangled the phone, tried to keep a lid on his frustration. When he put the phone back to his ear, he had it handled. "Listen, bitch-"

" _He's rising, Dean. I know you think it isn't possible, I know you think two humans and a fallen angel somehow shut him up for good-_ "

"We did."

" _And you're willing to take that risk?_ "

Dean was quiet. She'd already made this argument. But he wasn't going to help her. Demons lie. And somehow Sammy always paid for Dean's mistakes. He wasn't going to get taken in again.

" _Dean?_ "

"Answer's no. Don't bother calling again."

He hung up on her, resisted the urge to throw the phone into the darkness. Cas said Lucifer was shut up tight. Sam said Lucifer would have sprung himself immediately if it was as easy as raising Lilith from the dead. Dean had no idea what way was even up anymore, but he trusted Cas, he trusted Sam. He looked back at the motel room, bedside lamp still on, felt the doorkey in his pocket, struck out for the nearest bar he could walk to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry! School started. I'm trying. I swear!**

* * *

**Episode Five**  
" **Time is Gonna Come"  
Chapter Two**

"DEAN!"

Dean snapped awake, flash of occupational panic, gun out and pointed, and Sam put his hands up.

"Hey hey, I surrender," Sam said.

Dean rolled his eyes, dropped his gun. Then the pounding started, the trashcan taste in his mouth, the rambling of his stomach and oh ugh wow fuck how much did he _drink_ \- Right. Fuck. Abaddon.

"You were dreaming," Sam said. He pinned Dean with a glare that managed bitchy and concerned all at once.

"Yeah?" Dean rubbed at his eyes, spied the glass of water and aspirin on the bedside table. What a good little brother. "What'd I say?"

Sam's glare abated, he looked away to the floor, pressed his lips together. "Nothing."

Dean swallowed the pills, eyed Sam. "Yeah. I _thought_ that was your 'nothing' face."

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, clearly just checking boxes, trying to get the topic dropped.

"What'd I say, Sam?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Brother."

"Okay...? So what's the-"

"And campfire."

Oh. Oh. He looked away. Sam turned away toward the table, shuffling papers and generally practicing advanced avoidance techniques. That explained that - Sam might have come to terms with Benny, but even Dean wasn't about to say he had to like it. He was about to drop the whole thing, but Sam said:

"And toothbrush?" Sam's voice was careful; Dean tried to decipher him. Sam, careful, continuing a line of conversation that was obviously a source of strain - Sam... still trying to find out if Dean was really okay. Despite what it might have cost _Sam_ to revisit purgatory, Benny.

Okay. Well, he didn't remember his dream, but if he'd said _toothbrush_ , it was probably about that alterna-Sam, the kid who thought he'd had a black mark on his soul from age eight, the kid who had nearly gotten Dean to quit hunting. The kid who had taught him how to talk to and listen to his own brother, despite never having met the real Sam.

"Sam."

Sam didn't turn around.

But it hardly mattered. Dean couldn't tell him about his failed first deal with Death, couldn't bring himself to admit aloud that he'd given Sam up because he thought Sam had been too broken to fix. Especially not now, with this Sam standing up tall and straight at the little table, sorting through information for their case, looking alert and fully dressed, all of his own accord. Still, he had to at least try.

"Sam?"

"All that matters is that you're okay."

Dean sighed. Fine. "Whatever I was dreaming, I don't even remember it."

"You sure? You were pretty upset."

"Yeah, I'm good. What about you? Still alone in there?"

Sam nodded, finally turned back to him from the table, halfway. "Yeah. I don't remember any dreams, I'm rested. I feel..." He shrugged. "I feel _good_. You think that's it? I'm fixed?"

Dean watched him, standing there, tapping on the back of the chair with nervous energy. Sam was fully dressed all right, and now Dean smelled coffee, and when he looked, there was a bag with the pink and orange logo of the donut shop on the corner. Sam had been out, Sam had been back in. Sam was keyed up again, not unlike Boston when he'd downed a shot of _something_ , thinking Dean was asleep. Not unlike alterna-Sam when he'd been meeting secretly with Ruby.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Dean said. "So you aren't tripping Lucifer anymore. You've still got this trials crap in you, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"But you sound good. No coughing?"

"I drank like half a bottle of non-drowsy cough medicine," Sam said. He appeared to become aware of his own incessant thumb-tapping and pulled his hands into fists. "Guess it's making me jittery."

Sure. Okay. We'll go with that, Sam. Whatever makes you feel better. "So you got breakfast-"

"Yeah, like an hour ago. When did you get in last night?"

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. He felt refreshingly terrible. Like he'd wrecked himself, and possibly gotten into a bar fight, and definitely drunk too much. Goddamn Abaddon. Shit. Shit. "I don't even know. Okay. Shower. Then we're hitting the town."

* * *

"Okay, uh, Erica," Dean said. "Thanks for talking with us."

Erica frowned. "You can help, right?"

She was pretty, young, curvy - maybe more Sam's speed since it looked like she probably had read a lot of the books on her shelves. But she also had a killer monster movie collection, so. Who knew.

"We need to do some checking around, get all the information we can. Sam says your uncle gave you our number?" Dean glanced over at Sam to refer to him; Sam was hanging back, hands in his jacket pockets, looking suspiciously like he was just waiting for Dean to be done. Dude, this was _your_ hunt. "Right Sam?"

"Yeah."

Erica looked between them, one brow up. "Y...eah. He did. Not my real uncle, more like that crazy family friend. You must have one."

Dean closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he said, "Yeah. Yeah we did."

Sam cleared his throat. "Maybe we should talk to Stephen," he suggested.

Erica narrowed her eyes at both of them. Dean shifted under her gaze. "Okay," she said, "But. I told you, he's-"

"Yeah, we know," Dean said.

"Okay then. I'll go get him." She excused herself toward the staircase, calling up as she went, "Stevie!"

Dean rounded on Sam. "What's with you?"

Sam startled out of his thoughts. "What are you talking about?"

"You're the one who wanted to take this job, Sam. And now you're wallflowering?"

Sam shrugged. "Since when do you have a problem taking point?"

"We're trying to get you back in the saddle, Sam. That _is_ what we're doing here, right? Easy hunt, talk to the locals, kill a... whatever this thing is."

"You want us to talk in unison at her, Dean? Get serious."

Dean rolled his eyes, but yeah, Sam, we all noticed how you just completely didn't answer the question. Why _are_ we here?

"Well, why don't you take the lead with 'Stevie' then?"

"Maybe I'll just go wait in the car-"

Dean stepped into Sam's space, hand on his shoulder. Sam grimaced, brief crease of pain over his forehead, but Dean didn't let him go, shook him just a little. "You're staying right here. This is _our_ case. Sam. You get that if you're not on this hunt with me, there's no hunt. Right? We're only here because of you."

Sam shook his head, backed up a step out of Dean's orbit, hands up. "Sorry. I thought we were investigating some poor girl's brother's paranormal memory loss. Didn't mean to drag you out against your will-"

"That's not what I'm saying. Would you stop intentionally misunderstanding me for like two seconds? I'm saying that _I'm_ following _your_ lead here. And it seems like you'd rather be anywhere else. And if that's _true_ , just tell me, and we'll go home. It's that simple."

Sam frowned at him, little lines of doubt. "We belong here. I'm in. I'm sorry-"

Dean cut him off with a wave of his hand. "If you say you're sorry one more time, I'm gonna smack you."

Sam watched him a moment, maybe deciphering truth from white lie reassurances - but it _was_ truth, Dean was pretty sure. Whatever Sam wanted to do, even if it wasn't hunting, they'd do. But whatever Sam was looking for, he apparently didn't find, because he sighed and turned and said, "Can you just handle the interview? I didn't sleep much."

Okay, baby steps. Because Dean still remembered the shock of realization in mirror world, a twenty-two year old Sam who talked to people and smiled, versus this thirty-one year old anti-socialite.

"Fine. But you're doing all the book work."

"Fine." Sam faded back. "Oh, Dean-" he said then, just as Dean was turning back to greet Erica and Stevie coming down the stairs.

Dean stopped short. Little slow on the heads-up, Sammy.

Stevie was... okay, short bus was a mean way of saying it, right? He didn't want to be mean, there was a right way to talk about it, right? Stevie had an open round face, little eyes behind his glasses. Round all over, actually, and not too tall. Erica said he was twenty-seven, but he looked more like a baby-faced, if balding, teen. And he looked upset.

"Sorry," Erica said. "He's usually so happy. But he keeps forgetting things."

"Uhm." Dean was staring. That was rude. Right?

"No apology necessary," Sam said, and Dean exhaled in relief. Sam was going to step in. He was better at this interviewing crap anyway. He turned to let Sam take point, frowned when Sam stayed where he was, admiring little statuettes on the mantle. Sam eyebrowed at him expectantly.

Dean turned back, gestured to the couch. "Hello, Stevie," he said, taking a seat in the opposing armchair where he could watch Sam. "My name's Dean, and this is my brother Sam," he said slowly. He looked up at Sam in reference, to find Sam giving him a stern look he recognized meant he was doing something wrong. Dean shrugged, an obvious invitation to come and do better, but Sam just sighed and looked off. Not good. Not Sam.

"So you're forgetting stuff, huh?"

Stevie nodded.

"Can you tell me about what happened the night you first started forgetting?"

Stevie rocked forward a little, hands hanging off his knees. "Wa- wa- wa-" and then he was visibly upset again, and Erica put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She leaned down to murmur in his ear and he shook his head and pawed at his tears.

"He's upset," Erica said. "He struggled with dysfluency as a kid. It comes back when he's upset. Come on, baby."

Stevie wheeled his head to the side, away from Erica, looking super annoyed and give Sam some nice round cheeks and half a neck and it'd be the spitting image of him pitching a fit over _Sammy_.

"Let me guess," Dean said. "He hates it when you call him that?"

Erica chuckled. "Better mad than sad, I always say." She slid the hand on his shoulder down to his ribs, gave him a little tickle. Stevie laughed and pushed her hand away. "I knew you were hiding in there, baby. Hey. Forgetting things is scary, huh?" Stevie nodded. "Well, these guys are gonna find who did this to you and fix it, okay?" Stevie looked at Dean. Twisted around to look at Sam. Sighed and sat back against the couch.

"Later," he said. His big tongue filled his mouth. Had that R speech impediment that made him sound like a cartoon. _Be nice, Dean,_ a voice, Sam's voice, in his head.

Erica flopped onto the couch next to him, petted his hair. "No can do, kiddo."

"You're losing your memories, right?" Dean said. "What if you lose this one, and we got nothing to go on?" He looked up for support from Sam to find Sam trying to cut Dean off with his hand across his throat. On the couch, Stevie's eyes had gone wide. Shit, right. Because he was already freaking over memory loss. Whoops.

"S'a lady!" Stevie said. "A lady, she said I could help her. Sh-she said I ... couldbeahero I said yes I would help-!"

His speech was so deliberate, careful, it rocked back and forth until he got stalled out, and then it came in a burst of air and noise that Dean had to work to decipher. A lady, huh. Dean nodded.

"Okay. I think we're done here."

"Dean," Sam started, stepping forward. He gestured with his eyebrows at the mess Dean had caused, Stevie crying into Erica's arms.

"Listen. _If_ this is what you think it is, then we can help."

Erica looked up. "What do you mean, _if_?"

Dean plastered on a smile. "I'm not trying to say anything here, okay. Just. Sometimes the human mind plays tricks, tries to make sense out of whatever you're afraid of. It's okay. We all get afraid-"

"Dean," Sam said, tone of warning, fatigued. He finally came around from his watchful spot behind the couch, crouched to address Erica and Stevie. "I'm so sorry. He's just trying to-"

Stevie looked up at Sam, sniffing back tears. "Are you sad?"

Sam raised his brows. "What?"

"Are you sad?" Stevie said again, his W-sounding R. He reached a hand up to touch Sam's hair. Dean frowned.

"Stevie!" Erica said, clearly shocked. She tugged him back from Sam. "I'm so sorry. He knows better, but-"

"It's okay to be sad," Stevie said.

"I'm not," Sam said, but he sounded taken aback, and Dean wasn't stupid, okay. He knew Sam was acting cagey. And as Dean just just painfully learned, Sam hadn't made any real attempt to connect with people, for like, _years_ \- still, just standing on the sidelines when Dean was screwing up this whole special ed kid thing? That was beyond abnormal. Maybe Sam _was_ sad. Maybe Stevie had some shining thing where his IQ should have been.

"Thanks. We'll call if we have any more questions," Dean said, tugging Sam back to his feet. Sam was watching Stevie, and Stevie was watching Sam, and Dean propelled his brother to the door, followed by Erica.

"I'm sorry," she said. "He knows better than to touch without asking. He's really affectionate. Just - not with men. Never before."

Dean shrugged, trying to make light. "Sam's basically a girl-"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Call if Stevie remembers anything else, okay?" he said. Once they were out of earshot, Sam walked ahead of him toward the car and said, "You act like that, and you still wonder why I didn't tell you about seeing Lucifer right away? You're unbelievable."

* * *

"Okay..." Dean said, hunching down low behind the steering wheel. He watched the parking lot of their motel. "What the hell?"

"They were just protecting Enoch," Sam mimicked, hunkering down as far in the passenger seat as he could.

"Shaddup," Dean replied, but Sam thought it sounded tired.

The Feds were easy to spot - like, the way he and Dean _wanted_ to be tagged as Feds, these guys probably didn't, but they couldn't hide it. The stiff posture, the alert awareness of their surroundings? The pattern of their "random" paths, like they were just average citizens who made a circuit of the block every few minutes like clockwork. No dog needed to be walked that often. No one delivered flowers to the same office across the street from the motel once every ten minutes. They'd been sitting around the corner in the motel parking lot for half an hour, and Sam's head was starting to pound. He needed his bag.

"They aren't going away," Sam said.

"Got a plan?"

"You don't?"

"Course I do," Dean said. "I just wondered if you - nevermind. Come on."

It was easy to go in a side door, past the pool. It was easy to avoid the janitor who was obviously not a janitor-

"Jesus," Dean said once they were around the corner. "I think I'm insulted."

"I know. They could have at least put the right logo on the guy's uniform."

Dean looked at him like he was speaking french. "You saw that? I just saw the haircut and thought - Okay, nevermind."

Sam grinned. Then the headache pounded on him and he put his hand on the wall to steady himself.

"Whoa, hey-" Dean's voice was in his ear. The sound of it made him sick, so loud, so concerned like Sam was a weak, pathetic thing.

"I'm okay," Sam said. "I'm fine." He smiled again, pushed away from the wall. It was just a headache. Just nausea. Just a jangling down his spine and into his limbs, feet and hands on fire. "Tired," he said. "Didn't sleep-"

"Yeah. You said."

Dean didn't look convinced. He watched Sam another long moment; Sam couldn't figure out what he wanted from him. He pushed past Dean to check the coast, then said, "Okay, time to make a break for it."

* * *

_It's cute that you think you can ignore me._

Dean stared hard at the bathroom door, ready to lose his phone at the first sign Sam might be coming back out. He'd been dodging her calls, but texts popped right up on the screen of his stupid smart phone thing. More messages followed. Vibe, message, vibe, message.

_Watch him. Doesn't he look better?_

_He's being strengthened. Two guesses as to how._

_He's rising, Dean, and if you want your baby brother safe? You'll help me keep Lucifer in his cage._

_I'll be in touch._

Sam came out. Dean looked absorbed in his phone, madly deleting the texts while Sam stepped around him to get a look. By some miracle, he'd done it and managed to get some stupid game up on the screen before Sam could get an eyeful, and then Sam just rolled his eyes and went to his duffel to root around. Dean stared at him, at the headache lines fading from his forehead, fatigue swept out of his shoulders. The slight cough gone.

"So what do you think it is?" Sam asked.

He'd grabbed his bag and headed into the bathroom immediately on getting back into the room, while Dean glared at the door, imagining.

He should have just asked. Just asked, and tried to make it come out understanding. _It's okay, Sammy. We'll get through it together, whatever. Demon blood makes you feel better, I get it. The trials are more than any person could stand for as long as you have. But let's rethink this solution, okay? Because it's not as temporary as you think, this addiction._

But he couldn't make the words come out. Because the truth was, Sam had been _dying_ of illness before the church. He'd been pushing so hard just to get out of bed, and then Lucifer showed up. Sam was on last legs, and this _drug_ made him feel okay again, and it was obvious even to Dean that if he didn't do this right, if he came at it like Sam was an addict, a worthless pathetic junkie, Sam would sink and Dean would never get him back.

And what right did Dean have to judge, when he was getting texts from a knight of Hell?

"Dean?" Sam looked at him with concern. "You with me, kiddo?"

Dean quirked up half a grin. _Kiddo_ meant Sam was _really_ worried. "Yeah, no, what?"

Sam took a step toward him, head tilted like he could see what was wrong with Dean better that way. "I was just asking what you thought the monster of the week was. You okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?"

Sam's look of concern vanished, replaced by downcast eyes, the curled lip like Dean had said something hurtful, and Sam was shoving it down, wheeling it back, breathing it away. He looked back up and said, "I'm gonna head to the library, look through the newspaper archives. I'll be back in a few hours."

"You can't go out there alone-"

"I can't go to the _library_?"

Dean blew out a breath. "I _mean_ , apparently we're on Fed radar. We don't go anywhere without backup. Either of us."

* * *

So they both ended up in the library, shuffling through old newspapers, Sam on microfiche duty, because he kept sneezing and Dean was worried about his currently non-existent cough, not that he'd tell Sam that was it.

His phone vibrated again. Another text. He glanced at it. Another promise, another plea.

Sam shifted. "Man, put your phone on silent. That's annoying."

Dean's phone vibed again: _Oh, he's irritable, isn't he? How long since his last fix?_

Dean looked around, flash panic. She could see them. Fuck. Another message. _Aw, that's cute._ Dean turned the thing off and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Got anything?" he said, leaning back from the table to whisper at Sam's head.

"Not yet. There was a jumper in 1965, but..."

"But?"

"He didn't die. The bridge isn't high enough. He got rescued by a passerby, died of natural causes twenty years later."

Dean huffed. "So, probably not a ghost."

"Not so far." Sam leaned back, stretched a bit. Dean heard his breath hitch, wondered if it was his shoulder giving him problems or some other issue Dean didn't know about, or hell, maybe it was just Dean's imagination - Sam was fine. Too fine, Abaddon's words rang in Dean's head. _Watch him. He's being strengthened._ Sam left off stretching, turned in his seat to part face Dean, and Dean turned toward him. "What if..."

"What."

"What if it's a Nix?"

"Water spirit? Here?"

"Nebraska's almost 40% German ancestry-"

"Yeah, but Nix lure their victims into the water and drown them. This one's stealing memories."

"What if there've been more victims, and Stevie's the only one who's gotten away?"

"Stevie Shortbus got away when normal people didn't?"

"Dean!" Sam admonished, and Dean did feel bad.

"Sorry. But my point stands." He watched Sam's face, wanted to throw him a bone, wanted Sam to be right about something. "It's 13% Irish. Whatcha got?"

Sam hmmed. "Kelpie?"

Dean thought a second, chased down this errant memory. _Yes_ \- "Nine children were dragged into the water, the tenth escaped," Dean said in triumph, a little too loudly.

"By cutting off his own hand, yeah. But. That's the Scottish version, and." Sam's shoulders sagged. "Kelpies don't steal memories. It's probably not a water spirit. Nevermind."

"Hey. You went there because of Lethe, right? Water and memories, big-time connection. It wasn't a stupid idea."

"You don't have to coddle me, Dean. I'm back in the saddle, okay?"

"I'm not - Okay, I am. Yeah. I am. You're coming back from something, okay? Something serious, and I almost lost you, twice, and whatever I can do, I'm gonna do. I'm not apologizing for it."

"And you shouldn't apologize. I'm just saying, you don't have to do anything. I got this."

* * *

In the end, they had a list: Nix or kelpie, troll, mermaid, ghost, just in case.

"Okay, but mermaids don't exist, Sam," Dean said, driving them south out of city limits to the bridge on Linden Road where Stevie said it had happened. It was coming on evening, and the little village of Holmesville sat sleepy in front of them, sparsely populated there a couple of miles out of Beatrice. Up ahead, the rush of water through the power plant dam oversang the crickets.

Sam hung his elbow out of the window and breathed in through his nose. "I seem to recall you said the same thing about angels."

"Okay, good point-"

"And most lore says they're related to sirens, which we know exist-"

"I said good point, Jesus."

Sam snickered in the passenger seat, looking over their map. "Okay, left. Left, Dean!"

"I got it, Christ."

"Slow down, slow down." Sam leaned forward in his seat, looking across the bridge as Dean crept up on it. "There. Stevie said the 'lady' talked to him on a big boulder by the end of the bridge. That's gotta be it."

The electronics cut out halfway across the bridge and the impala rolled to a stop.

Dean sighed. "Awesome."

"You'd think we'd learn to leave the car and walk."

"You'd think. Okay, ready?"

"Nope. Let's go."

Shotguns filled with salt, a protective charm Sam had yanked out of his - uh, brain, and earplugs. If it was a troll, they'd just have to try to beat on it and run. Dean really hoped it wasn't a troll. It had taken the form of a lady, and Dean hoped that meant no troll. But ghost, kelpie, or mermaid - they were prepared for.

Dean tapped Sam's shoulder and they split up. They'd rock paper scissored for who'd be bait, and Sam had won, which meant he got to go hide - in safety - while Dean walked the bridge, looking tasty. Dean looked around as he went, hands out and empty, but in position to pull the shotgun when the time came. He made a show of looking up and down the bridge, left and right to the water, but it was mostly just an excuse to watch Sam's position.

Sam who was "back in the saddle," but who still sagged against the wall when his mystery drug wore off, still woke up choking on blood - but he was standing tall when he'd loped off toward cover. He was standing up straight, he was carrying his weight, he was - _being strengthened_. He glanced over at Sam's cover again, and he wondered, and he worried that she was right, and that Sam was in danger, and that Lucifer was going to claw his way back into his brother.

And he went down with a thump, a weight on top of him, and his head met the road and he blacked out for a second. _Fuck_.

"Dean!"

Dean pushed up, dislodged the thing - a person, just a person, well, a woman. With strength. She whirled off of him but didn't let go of his arm. She grabbed and didn't let go. She looked human, but of course, that just narrowed the options down from four to... well. Four. If you counted the East Asian shapeshifter mermaid stories or the Slavic shapeshifter troll stories. So. Shit.

"What-"

But she'd got her hand to his head and suddenly he couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't-

"Let him go!"

_Sammy. Run._

"I don't think so," she said. "I need his head. I need what's in it."

"His memories, right?" Sam said.

She shook Dean by the head. Dean felt dumb and slow, his tongue thick, mute, and he blinked.

"I need them." She pressed her clawed fingernails into his face, drawing blood. God, it hurt. But he couldn't move, or react, or reassure Sam who was yelling for her to stop, stop. "What'll you give me?"

"Just let him go," he said, and stepped forward when he said it, toward Dean, watching Dean, and Dean managed to move his mouth, to try to tell him not to be so friggin stupid all the time.

She stopped. "Who's this kid to you?" she asked Dean.

Dean watched the guy. He drew up his energy and said, "I don't know."

The guy stopped in his tracks, stared. "No. No no-"

"Yes. Now what will you give me?"

"What do you want?"

_Don't give her anything, kid. Whoever you are. Don't do it._

The woman leaned forward, sniffed the air. " _Your_ memories. You got lifetimes in there. Hundreds of years of memory. I want them."

The guy stared. Looked at Dean. Licked his lips. "Fine-"

"Promise!"

"Fine, I promise!"

"Good-"

"Stay right there," the guy said, brandishing a gun. _Holy shit, a gun would be so useful right now_. "Put his memory back first."

She cackled. That's what she did. Straight up movie witch bitch cackle. "You were a lawyer in a previous life, weren'tcha."

The kid muttered something.

She pressed in again, Dean bit back a manly yelp as the memory flooded back in, Sammy, there holding a gun on this lady, and he'd just made a deal for Dean's release, and _oh Sammy_ -

She tossed Dean to the ground and flew at Sam, light on her feet and Dean filed that away because they still didn't know what she was, and then he rolled and pulled the shotgun he suddenly remembered he had, primed it and -

Sam fell backwards in a mad scramble to get away from her _and_ get out of Dean's line of fire, and he fired upwards at her and Dean fired upwards at her, and she shrieked and vanished.

 _Vanished_.

"Well, shit."

Sam looked at him. "Yep. So. That happened."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I know it's been forever. I know we are all still reeling from canon season nine's mid-season finale. I didn't intend for parts of this chapter to be as sad as they make me. And I need to tell you right now that the big arcs of this season have been plotted since June, for real. Any further odd canon/Lustra similarities are accidental and I'm probably super annoyed about them. Like even this episode here that's got a lot to do with memory loss - plotted before Zeke started erasing Sam's memories. Okay? So I'm sorry if some of this feels like a remix rather than a crafted plot. I had no knowledge of how canon would go beyond season eight's finale before I started writing this.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who reviews or give kudos. And special thanks to Caladrius for reading and for prodding and for writing the wonderful and fantastically plotted "The Boogeyman." And for being my Dean.

 

**Episode Five  
** " **Time is Gonna Come"**  
Chapter Three

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Dean snarled, tossing his shotgun into the trunk.

"I know. I don't think she's anything from our list-"

"I meant, what was that 'I promise' bullshit?" Dean slammed the trunk closed.

Sam blinked at him. "Uhm. I'm pretty sure that was me, saving your ass."

"Yeah. Right. You know better, Sam-"

Sam stopped with his hand on the handle of the passenger door. "What? I _know_ better? It's not like I was gonna actually follow through, Dean."

Dean bit down on his tongue. Of course he wasn't going to follow through. But sometimes you didn't get a choice, okay? But before he could just tell Sam to get in the car and forget about it, Sam said:

"Whatever, like you would have done anything different."

"I wouldn't have let it happen in the _first_ place!"

Sam pinned him, eyes bright with anger. "Oh really? Cuz from where I'm standing, that's exactly what you did. What _was_ that, Dean? So worried about your unreliable little brother you almost got yourself _killed_." He scoffed, shook his head.

"Calm down-"

"I can't believe you're putting this on me." Sam was _not_ calming down. "We've done this a million times, but no. You just have to check in on your frail, fragile little brother!"

"You don't seem so frail _now_ ," Dean spat.

Sam reared back in surprise, probably at Dean's tone. Yeah, he hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory, but all he could think was that he was going to get himself killed and Sam didn't even need the extra attention because he was high on demon blood.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Sam said, stepping back from the door.

"Nothing. Just get in the car."

"You're mad at me because I'm feeling _better_?"

"Don't be stupid-"

"Yeah, I'm the stupid one. Jesus Dean, make up your mind. Am I supposed to be back in the saddle, or sitting on the sidelines? Am I supposed to be your hunting partner, or the sidekick that needs rescuing? You know what? Take your time and think about it. I'll meet you back at the motel." Sam yanked the back door open, and like he had too many times before, pulled his bag out of the backseat and shouldered it, turned his back on Dean and started to walk away.

"Sam- Don't. Aw come on."

"Forget it, Dean."

Dean got into the car and crept along next to Sam at idle speed. There were no streetlights on this little stretch of highway, so Sam was a dark shadow against the slightly lighter sky, lit only along the front of him by the backwash shine of the impala's headlights. Dean leaned over into the passenger seat.

"Come on, Sammy, get in the car."

"No."

"It's three miles back to town."

"I used to run five miles every morning, Dean. I think I can handle it."

Dean rolled his eyes. He couldn't let Sam walk back. Aside from the fact that it meant Sam had won this little fight and that was a mark on Dean's pride, terrible things tended to happen when Sam went off on his own. He got kidnapped or hurt or possessed or - And anyway, Abaddon was out there, somewhere close. He'd gotten three buzzes in his pocket during their argument alone; she was watching. Sam couldn't know that part, but she was still a pretty good reason -

"Sam. I'm not letting you walk home alone-"

Sam growled out frustration. "I'm not frail enough during the fight, but now I'm not even capable of walking by myself at night?"

"Shut up already, Jesus. I'm _saying_ Abaddon isn't going to stop looking for you. Hell, she probably already has a new meat suit."

"Abaddon was looking for _Crowley_ , Dean-"

"And Crowley said _you're_ at the top of the hit list. You got the keys to the castle, remember?"

Sam slowed, but didn't turn toward the car. "She's not after me," he said.

"How can you know that?"

Sam shrugged. "Everyone must know by now that I failed to close the gates. I'm not a threat."

Dean shook his head. Only Sam could turn self-loathing into a logical argument. "Then for my peace of mind, Sammy, please. In case there are demons out there who didn't get the memo. Come on. Please."

Sam didn't move.

"I'm sorry. That what you want?" Nothing. "Fine." He stopped the car, pulled the keys, got out and tossed them at Sam, who caught them without even looking. "You drive then."

Sam looked at him like he was crazy. And sure, okay, the unspoken rule was Sam doesn't drive because Sam occasionally wakes up on the floor drooling blood and dizzy, Sam sometimes can't see straight, sometimes can't aim straight - all things that were kind of no-nos when it came to driving. But.

Sam squeezed his fist around the keys, and the smile that teased at the corners of his mouth made Dean think he'd done it, saved the day, given Sam that token of reassurance he was always looking for, but then the little light of hope vanished. Sam closed his eyes, under knitted brows, exhaled breath, and when he opened his eyes again, he was resigned. He tossed the keys back to Dean without a word and got into the passenger seat.

* * *

Sam didn't talk to him the rest of the ride back, and he opted to stay in the car while Dean checked them into a new motel, flipping through the research to fit what they had seen with one of the creatures on their list. That was his story, anyway. Dean let him stew if he wanted. Whatever, if it made him feel better. Just as long as he wasn't running off on his own, just as long as he was throwing his fit in the relative safety of the car, twenty feet from the office.

"You okay, son?" the geezer at the desk said, catching his attention, and it was the third time the guy had had to repeat himself, and Dean felt bad about it.

"Yeah, sorry."

"Everything all right?" the guy said, nodding out the window toward the impala, dome light on, Sam's head bent in study. His hair covered his face, it could have looked like he just didn't feel well.

"Yeah. No. We're good. My brother's not feeling great. Guess I'm just worried."

The old guy peered at Sam through the window, but shrugged. "Flu goin' around." He said, and then he looked Dean up and down too. Dean could just guess - _brothers, yeah right. King bed? Single, or...?_ Dean shook his head, grinning. He took the couple of keys the guy handed him out to the car, knocked on Sam's window.

Sam startled, looked up at him, a flash of fear there, and Dean didn't mean to, but he backed up a little, because that wasn't what he'd expected. Sam wasn't supposed to be afraid of him. But then it was gone and Sam was grumpy and his eyes were bloodshot and he had a hand pressed to his chest and the book he was reading when Dean left was still open to the page with the big picture of a classical siren. Sam hadn't been studying. He'd been suffering.

Dean made a face. "Come on, Sammy," he said, yanking the door open. "Let's get you into bed-"

"Uh, Dean?"

Dean looked at him, then followed his gaze back to the front office, where the grizzled fella behind the desk was on the phone, pointing at them, referring to a piece of paper. Sam had his phone in his hand and was pressing through some menus, and a moment later, they heard the fuzz of the police band:

_...suspects sighted at Long Street and 3rd..._

"Dammit."

"How did we suddenly get on their radar again?" Sam said.

Dean sprinted around the front of the car and threw himself into the driver's seat. "I dunno," he said, putting the car into gear and peeling out.

"So..."

Dean watched the road, looking for black and whites or those asshole crown vics, drove as non-descriptly as possible. He made the rounds, side mirror, rear view, side streets as they passed. It was almost two in the morning and no one was out. The streets were clear. The police scanner on Sam's phone crackled and Dean caught some back and forth: ... _stand down... call-in confirmation...code confirmed... just let 'em have it, it ain't worth arguin'..._

"Feds?" Sam said. "Seriously. How are they finding us? What'd we even do?"

"I don't know."

Sam looked up from his phone at the road ahead, looked around like he'd just noticed they were moving with some purpose. "Where are we going?"

"We can't stay in a motel. My bet is every office has our pictures tacked up somewhere with instructions to call in, and this town ain't exactly got a seedy underbelly we can hide in."

Sam relaxed back against the seat. In the wash of light from his phone, he looked pale. His hands were shaky. Probably needed another fix of _whatever_. "Right," he said. "So. We're squatting."

"Yeah. Lucky for us, the recession's still alive and kicking out here. Cased a farmhouse on the way into town last night-"

"Couple miles back from the highway, east of the town line?"

"Yeah."

Sam smiled there with his head back against the headrest, eyes closed. "That's two dollars."

Dean made a face. "What? I'm not giving you two bucks."

"I guessed right. You owe me, fair and square."

Dean watched him a minute. His forehead was wrinkled like he was in pain, probably a headache, but he was still smiling, breathing kinda heavy. Just Sam, sick but otherwise, just Sam. "We ain't kids anymore, Sam-"

"Yeah, you're right," he agreed with a sigh. "Two dollars is child's play. You oughta owe me twenty."

Dean grinned at the road. "Tell ya what. We'll stop for dinner on the way and call it square."

Sam chuckled. "Fine by me," he said, voice faint. He was fading fast. An hour before, he was fury-full and storming at Dean about being reckless, and now he was a slow-breathing ball of tired barely finishing his sentences. Jesus.

"We oughta go on home, Sam," Dean said quietly. Like, maybe if Sam didn't hear him, didn't argue, Dean might just keep driving until they were out of Nebraska, out of this FBI infested prairie-land. But Sam said:

"I'm fine, Dean. Look. I'm sorry. You were right, okay? I'm _not_ as well as I'm pretending to be. But I have to keep going. We have to keep working. Just promise me-" Sam opened his eyes and caught Dean in his sincere gaze. "Please don't get yourself killed looking out for me. Please."

Dean frowned. "Okay. Jeez. Melodramatic."

Sam let his head drop against the headrest again, closed his eyes, laughed. "I'm serious."

"I know you are." Dean patted Sam's knee. "Take a little nap. You got about ten minutes."

* * *

Dean frowned at the mattress where Sam lay, scene too familiar, watched Sam's chest rise and fall like it might stop if he took his eyes off it, like Sam might be cold to the touch if Dean put his hand out to his cheek there, like Sam might have been killed in a dusty road in an abandoned ghost town -

\- like it had all happened yesterday in a dream or a week ago in an alternate timeline, or years ago for real, Sam's hot blood coating Dean's hands, his eyes sliding shut as he lost a battle with consciousness, no last words, no last _Dean_ , rubbery weight in Dean's arms the way kids had about them, the way Sam's head had lolled on his shoulders, how he'd sunk to his knees like he'd had his strings cut, pliant and springy with youth.

Not like now. Not like Sam was now, tense through every line, even in sleep. Bony jointed and thin and sharp where he'd once had deep dimples and soft cheeks. He'd once been a baby in Dean's arms, Dean had once taken care of this kid's every need. Somewhere along the way, he'd allowed those baby cheeks to harden into angles, those dimples to shallow out with the starvation in Sam's face. He'd allowed his kid to grow up, to age hundreds of years, to suffer more than men could be expected to endure. And Dean couldn't look away.

The farmhouse had been ransacked through the first floor, dishes and curtains and rugs and personal effects taken or stolen or broken on the floor. Dust came up from the creaking plank flooring, Sam had coughed a fit and fisted blood in his palm and looked guilty about it. A _come on, kid_ and they were up the stairs where Dean sat Sam on the top step, leaned him against the railing. One room was less coated in dust than the rest, so Dean dragged a ratty mattress into the corner of it, found the linen closet and a sheet stuffed far enough into that it had no dust, just a musty smell.

Dean salted the windows and doorway, angel marks on each wall. No ghosts, no demons, no angels. Sam lowered himself to the mattress like he was half-asleep already, and ten minutes later was shivering so hard his teeth clacked together. Shivering, in June. Dean draped his jacket over Sam and tried to decide between finding a blanket and giving Sam another coughing fit with the dust, or letting him shiver.

In the end, it didn't matter, because Dean couldn't move himself from the spot on the floor where he watched Sam sleep.

But he must not have been really seeing him, because he startled when Sam said, "We used to think squatting was so cool when we were kids." His eyes followed a moth flirting with the camplight.

"That was before we got old."

Sam chuckled, coughed. "Never thought I'd miss motel beds."

"If you wanna head on home, that's fine with me-"

"No. No. We see this through."

Dean watched him. "Does it help you?"

Sam swallowed, looked away from him. The guilt made it clear they were on the same page: _Does it help you want to live?_ "I don't know yet." He closed his eyes a long moment, then pushed himself to sitting. "I'm trying, Dean."

"I know, kid."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Dean levered himself up from the floor to the mattress, bumped shoulders with Sam. "This is your fight, Sam. I don't know what I could say to help you, to change things for you. All I can say is that I want you here, I don't know what I'd do without you. I miss you, kid. And I'm sorry I can't just make things better with magical big brother powers anymore."

"This isn't your fault-"

"Isn't it?"

Sam didn't answer. He toyed with the frayed edge of the sheet that separated them from the dust-filled mattress. He didn't look at Dean. And Dean didn't get it, and he probably never would, because all he ever needed was for Sam to be all right, for Sam to trust him, and it didn't even tie back into his own life, okay? Because even if it meant he had to die for Sam to be okay, Dean would do it. Apparently it wasn't the same for Sam. It wasn't enough for Sam that Dean was there for him. That he was trying.

It kind of hurt.

"I thought you wanted to be here. I thought you'd be happy - In the car, you were happy-"

"I'm happy, Dean. I just. I feel..." He looked at Dean then, hollows under his eyes, brows up and together, hopeless. "Temporary. Like I'm waiting."

"Waiting? For what?"

Sam shrugged, sighed. "I don't know. Something..."

Dean knew the answer. Kind of a process of elimination thing, because Sam clearly knew the answer, but didn't want to say it, which meant it was the same old song: Something to give my life for, something that will make this all mean something.

"You've done a lot of good, more than anyone else can say-"

"That doesn't seem to matter. I'm just telling you... how I." Sam rolled his eyes to the ceiling in resignation. "That's all. I just feel like I'm waiting." He looked at Dean, like he was saying goodbye, pitying and heavy with condolences. "I'm sorry."

"Shut up. You said you were trying-"

"I am. Dean. I am. I just don't know if-"

"Well I do." Dean watched Sam flinch away, guilt and ache there, and he put his arm around Sam's shoulders and pulled him close, bony joints under Dean's arm where there should have been bulk and muscle. "Don't go anywhere, kid. We're gonna get you back."

Sam nodded and leaned against him, some rare reappearance of that little brother who used to sleep against Dean in the back of the car after a nightmare on the way to another hunt, or on the side of the highway when Dad was too beat to hustle and there were blankets enough for one. And maybe Sam remembered it too, because when he fell asleep again, he didn't shiver, his teeth didn't chatter, just the steady wheeze of his breathing, the comforting clean scent of his cheap shampoo, the solid weight of him, and Dean was soon sleeping too.

* * *

Morning light shafted in through the kitchen window's ratty curtains. Sam had slept through the night, and was still sleeping, something Dean tried to consider a bright spot in everything. The night before had been, okay, a little more touchy-feely than Dean was comfortable with with most people, but there had been this rare appearance of his little brother sleeping on him, and that was worth the kink in his neck from sleeping sitting up.

He craned his head to the side as Kevin jabbered on the other end of the line. Something about the math, something something.

"Kevin, I told you, okay. I'll have him call you when he gets up. No, I'm not waking him up. That's final."

And then there was a thump from upstairs, a crash of something hitting the floor, and Sam's voice calling for him, and Dean was halfway up the stairs before he even had the presence of mind to tell Kevin he'd call him back. By the time he was at the top of the stairs, all was silent. Dean's gun was out in front of him, and he took a creaking step, and he called out "Sam?"

No answer. Dean edged toward the room and took stock. Sam was on the floor in the middle of the room they'd crashed in, just now coming to with a groan. An ancient vase of dead flowers was smashed against the far wall. Nothing else disturbed. Except.

Dean leaned down and heaved Sam to his feet by one arm, patting him steady before heading past him, toward the window with its ratty curtains. A fresh tear, threads bright white inside rather than stringy and dingy from settling dust, and the salt on the window sill, disturbed.

"What happened?"

Sam had his eyes squeezed shut, the heel of his hand ground against his temple. "Don't know-"

"What do you mean you don't know?"

Sam looked at him. "What do you mean, what do I mean? I woke up, I was on the floor. I called for you-"

"In between trying to climb out of the window and throwing a vase against the wall?"

"No?" Sam frowned at the shards of vase, the scattered dust of dead leaves. "Maybe. I don't know." He thought a moment. "Nightmare?" Dean rolled his eyes, Sam saw it and added, "Honestly Dean, I don't remember anything."

"Right. Sounds familiar."

Sam quirked a brow at him. "You mean like-"

"Like little Stevie Wonder?" Dean said, and Sam was already pulling out his phone. "I knew it," Dean said, and Sam rolled his eyes. "I knew that promise was going to get you."

"What, just because I made some bogus promise, some monster can take my memories?" Sam said, waiting for the call to connect. "What kind of monster does that?"

"I don't know." Dean's phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, glanced at Sam, who turned away as Erica picked up. Emblazoned across the face of Dean's phone: _Lots of nasty things make deals, Dean._ Dean deleted the message and put the phone up to his ear. They needed more wheels turning.

"Kevin- No. No - shut up a minute will ya? I need you to hit the books. We're working from this end too, but you have the whole library at your fingers. No - Because Sam put a lot of work into organizing that crap into a database - Yeah. Yeah, I'll have him call you later. Uh..." He looked over at Sam. "No. Everything's okay. We just really need it before more people die. That's all."

He hung up just as Sam was saying good bye. "Everything okay?"

"No." Sam shoved his phone into his pocket and started tidying up the room. "Stevie's missing a lot more memory now. I asked if Erica noticed anyone strange around their house. She checked the windows and stuff. As far as she can tell, Stevie hasn't had any visitors. They're going to hole up in a motel for now."

"What are you doing?"

"We can't stay here, Dean. Something knows where we are, can get in through the window? It's not a ghost or a demon or anything else affected by salt. It's not an angel," he said, gesturing at the symbols on the walls.

"Well we can't go anywhere else. We're on the FBI's radar."

Sam shook his head, thinking. "We'll figure something out then, but we can't stay here. I'm gonna head to the library, see if there's anything I can dig about about the history of the town that doesn't point to ghost, demon, angel, mermaid, siren, or kelpie."

Dean pulled Sam up by the shoulder of his shirt and pushed him back, out of the way, took over packing up the room without discussion. "I'm coming with you." Behind him, Sam's annoyance radiated, and Dean grinned. "More brains are better. Come on, Sam. What happened to 'you're a genius?'"

Sam collapsed onto a chair and huffed. "I was caught up in the moment," he said, sullen. But Dean just chuckled at him. Kid was red-faced, out of breath with all the arduous _picking things up_ he'd been trying. Must have been frustrating to go from five miles a morning to ten minutes of breathing for every five minutes of work.

"Careful. You're gonna hurt my feelings."

"Shut up, Dean." But there was the beginning of a little smile.

* * *

"Okay, but who are we going to talk to?" Sam hissed around the laptop screen. They were back in an out of the way area of the library; Sam on the laptop, Dean pouring over newspapers the old-fashioned way. "Twelve missing persons cases filed, seven mentioned memory loss. Of those seven, all were found dead and only two were local, and _their_ relatives vanished off the map!"

They'd been at it for a couple of hours, after stopping for joe and breakfast, and Sam's morning bathroom routine that probably included God knew what - but he was up and working and alert and seemed to have perked up quite a bit. Enough that now he was kind of a pain in the ass. What a swing from mopey adorable little brother to talking-too-fast, hyper-active research machine. Dean cleared his throat, ignored the tap-tapping of Sam's thumbs against the tabletop. "Keep looking."

"For what, maybe... families of the non-locals?"

"Maybe."

"Or maybe I should switch over to history again-"

"Again? You're gonna find something the fifth time you look at that stuff?"

"Maybe!"

"Okay just calm down," Dean said. "Don't get all worked up."

"People are in danger-"

"Yeah? Well I'm pretty sure _you're_ the next victim, so just don't get dead and we're good, okay?"

Sam frowned. "I'm not the next victim, Dean-"

"Sam-"

"I'm not talking about the promise. I'm saying, _Stevie's_ the next victim. We have to solve this."

"And we will," Dean said, frowning at a page of one of the newspapers he'd been skimming through. He flipped to the front to check the date.

"What. Dean, what?"

"Hang on, jeez." Dean flipped back to the page he'd been reading. "Okay. I might have a lead. 'The body of Travis Stock was found Wednesday morning-' blahblah... Bam. He was found a mile downstream from that bridge."

Sam chewed his lip in thought. "Travis Stock?" He tapped at his keyboard and frowned at the screen. "Margie Stock still lives in the area. She filed a complaint, but no missing persons, and... the report doesn't say anything about memory loss."

Dean shrugged. "What can I say? I got a hunch." He rattled the pages loudly in an attempt to fold them together, then gave up and shoved the whole thing at Sam. "Address?"

"Dean-"

"Come on, Sammy. We have to solve this, remember? Give."

Sam scribbled the address onto a slip of paper and slid it over. But Dean stopped him as he started to close up his laptop. "You hang here, okay? We still need to know what we're dealing with. It ain't a ghost or a mermaid or whatever."

"But-"

"But nothin'-"

"Dean, you can't dump me in a library for my own good. I'm like thirty-"

"Thirty-one. I'm not dumping you. We need to split up to get this done, and honestly? You're driving me nuts."

Sam stopped thrumming his fingertips on the table immediately, tucked his thumbs into his palm and made fists to stop his nervous energy. He practically pouted at Dean. Yeah, some thirty-one year old.

* * *

Margie Stock lived in a run-down trailer out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by tall grass, down a long long dirt lane. A broken down husk of a car sat overgrown with weeds. For as far as you could see off to the west, there was nothing but field flowers nodding in the afternoon breeze. Chimes knocked together from her porch. On either end of the trailer, the small window slats were angled out, no air conditioning hum, no nothin'. The impala's low loud growl felt intrusive, not for the first time in Dean's life. Other times: the first time Dean had found Sam after a runaway attempt, sitting alone on a lake pier, smiling over the water with all of his worldly possessions in a bag next to him, peaceful; Stull Cemetery.

But he drove up and let the engine announce him. No one appeared when he slammed the car door shut. He made his way to the front on alert; the front door was open, just a screen door to keep out flies. His boots brought up dust when he stepped onto the porch. In the porch swing, a cat lifted her head and mewed at him, and her five kittens mimicked her.

Great. A crazy cat-lady.

Dean glanced through the screen door. The place was small, but wide; he couldn't see past the little living room-slash-kitchen in either direction, but it looked tidy enough. No signs of a struggle. No signs of hoodoo or demony goodness or anything.

He knocked. "Hello? Mrs. Stock?"

"Whatdya want?" she said from within the trailer.

"I just wanted to ask you some questions about Travis," Dean called. He glanced around them, a little self-conscious to be yelling at some woman - and saw the glint of sun off the barrel of a shotgun poking out at him from one of the small slatted windows on either end of the trailer. He put his hands up and smiled. "I'm not here to cause trouble, ma'am. I just want to ask some questions."

"You a cop? You look like a cop."

Dean laughed a little, nodded out toward his car. "A cop driving that? Please."

"You got the bearing. Don't try to fool me!"

Oh, brother. Fine. Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm not a cop, okay? But I get that a lot. I'm ex-military, emphasis on the ex. And... I don't really wanna talk about it, so-"

"Military, huh?" After a moment, the barrel of the shotgun withdrew from the window slats, and a few moments after that, she was coming up to the screen door, a woman in her 60s, probably, in a housecoat and slippers, gray hair in a tidy little bun. "Well come on in. I guess that explains why you didn't lose your cool with a gun on ya. And why you got a sidearm down the back of your jeans."

Dean frowned.

"My Travis was no soldier, but boy he wanted to be. Had a bum leg, couldn't pass a physical, so he followed the news and had all kinds of opinions. Went shooting, collected books. He'd talk you a streak if he was here now. You got that swagger he used to get when he'd tramp around out here with his gun in his jeans." She smiled a little, sad.

Dean nodded, pressed his lips together sympathetically. He passed her with a brisk nod, straightening up to support his ad-libbed military background, not that it was difficult to fake. The trailer was an oven inside, with only a lazy overhead fan moving the air around.

"Mrs. Stock-"

"Margie, please. Cup of coffee, Mr..."

"Call me Dean."

"Coffee, Dean?"

Dean nodded and took a stroll around the living room while she went into the kitchenette and called across the center island, "So what is it you do, Dean?"

"I'm a private eye. Uh, part-time." A portrait of Travis, presumably, hung on the wall over the television, off to the left a wall of bookshelves stacked with the aforementioned military manuals and true accounts, together with an assortment of mystery novels and space travel non-fiction. Hers, he thought, because one of them sat on the end table with a bookmark hanging out halfway through.

"And you're in Beatrice on a case?"

Dean turned to her. "Yeah. Gratis, actually. Friend of mine's brother is in trouble, kind of trouble maybe Travis was in."

"Travis wasn't in trouble," Margie said. "He was murdered." Her voice shook. Dean blew out a breath. Sam was better at the sensitive stuff. Ladies crying just made Dean uncomfortable and a little frantic.

"Maybe. You filed a complaint-"

"He went out walking. He did that a lot, to stretch his leg. And I think, to prove to himself that his bum leg couldn't hold him back. He came back one night saying some woman had tried to jump him. He didn't want to file a complaint, but I did. The cops didn't even follow up on account o' he's a man and should be able to defend himself. Assholes." She poured their coffees and Dean moved to carry them both into the living room.

"What did Travis say about this woman?"

Margie shrugged, dropped down onto the couch. "Not much. Said he didn't remember anything about her. Then about a week later, he disappeared."

"You didn't file a missing persons-"

"Because they wouldn't let me. Less than 48 hours later, he was found. So-"

"So... no missing persons. Got it." Dean sipped at the coffee. It wasn't bad. This lady was actually kind of nice. He felt bad for her.

"The cops aren't looking into his death."

"Yeah, I noticed that. Why ya think that is?"

Margie shrugged. "They think he fell into the river, that it was an accident. Because of his leg. But Travis was careful, and he walked every day to keep strong. He works harder than other people just to stay on his feet. He wouldn't just _fall_ into the _river_. But they couldn't find evidence that he'd been murdered. He wasn't shot, or stabbed, or beaten. He was just... dead." Margie closed her eyes and a single trail of wet traced down her wrinkled cheek. It'd been months since Travis Stock had died, but for Margie, it might as well have been yesterday; Dean recognized the feeling from a year of living with a woman and hiding his own raw well of grief. When she opened her eyes again, she was handling it.

Kind of like a Winchester. Dean smiled, just a little.

"I don't believe in a higher power, Dean. I don't believe in cosmic mumbo jumbo. I don't even believe in soulmates. But somehow I just - I _know_ he was murdered. Trav wouldn't just leave me like that. He was _taken_ from me."

"I believe you," Dean said. "I do. And I think, maybe. Whatever took Travis from you, it's taking other people. Maybe my friend's brother." He paused, decided getting personal would go a long way with her. "Maybe my brother. I'm gonna stop it from taking anyone else, okay? I'm gonna get you some justice. But you're my only lead. Come on, anything you can remember about that week. No matter how tiny the detail."

Margie frowned. "He said she made him promise something. He couldn't remember what-"

"Couldn't remember? Your report didn't say anything about memory loss."

"Why would it? He was jumped by some woman-"

"And you didn't think losing his memory over the next week was strange?"

She raised her brows and sat back, exuding dangerous calm. "Strange? Considering he's been losing memory for the last three years? No."

Dean opened his mouth, closed it. Felt chastised. "Oh. Kay. So... he _was_ losing memories during this week-" She nodded, still coolly watching him. "Moreso than usual?"

She exhaled through her nose, miffed at him, but maybe calming down. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Well, that explains why you didn't turn up in our search."

"Search?"

"Other victims, mostly visitors from out of town. Common thread was memory loss." Dean frowned. Travis Stock, history of memory loss. Stevie Wilcox, Downs' syndrome. Sam Winchester... depression and all kinds of other crazy Dean couldn't even begin to list. Maybe there was another common thread in play. "Hang on a sec would ya?" He pulled his phone to call Sam.

* * *

Sam rolled his shoulders. Dean had been gone just over an hour, and already Sam was feeling restless about it. Not that he was any help. Not that he was any use. Dumped at the library like he was fourteen again, good for book readin' and that was about it. He scanned through the tome in front of him, a big book of water spirits even though he was pretty sure he had been off base. And wasn't _that_ disconcerting, Dean trying to make him feel better about being wrong? He must have really been worried. And honestly, so was Sam. In the detached part of his brain, he worried that he was just done, that one day soon, one of these black moods would get him and not let go. He didn't actively want to die, but when he allowed himself to get caught up in thinking about it?

He didn't actively want to _live_ either.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Kevin's face, sour and annoyed to be having a picture taken, flashed across the screen before Sam answered it.

"Kev, any luck?"

" _So you're awake?_ "

Sam frowned. "Uh... Yeah? What's up?"

" _Whatever, nothing. I've been trying to call you for like years, but whatever. I'm working on this ghost thing-"_

"Ghost thing?"

" _Uh... yeah. The protection thing? So I can use that ghost decoder ring you guys found? On John Dee's journal?_ "

Sam felt dizzy. He knew who John Dee was, and he remembered waking up in a hotel room in Boston, but - ghost decoder ring and some journal, the words meant nothing to him, even though it was obvious Kevin expected him to know what he was talking about. Missing memories. God he felt light headed.

" _Sam?_ "

"Uh... Yeah. I just - I thought Dean had you on this case-"

" _He does. I'm working on it, okay? But I need your opinion on something. Charlie and I came up with a list of protective stones, but I'm not sure which would be best. The books here are ... well, I get the idea these guys didn't work, you know, in the field at all._ "

Sam squeezed his eyes shut a moment, got his bearings. They were going to figure this out, and then he was going to get his memories back. "No. Not really. So wait, you've got salt and iron somewhere in there, right?"

" _I'm not a noob, Sam._ "

"No, no of course not. Just making sure." Ghost decoder ring, to translate something - meant they hadn't gotten rid of the ghost, needed the ghost to do some mojo, needed it to do mojo but not harm the person _using_ the decoder thing - "So, I just had a thought - instead of just limiting it so it can't get far from the ... decoder ring, maybe just-"

" _Yeah, that's what you were saying yesterday morning. Man you_ are _out of it. Remember, we talked about how hard it was gonna be? You went off for like an hour on ghost physics? Anyway I got ahold of Charlie and we came up with a way to tie the protection specifically to me. Then we'll put salt down around the room so it can't get out and get into anyone else._ "

Sam rubbed his temple. He used to be better at covering his ass than this. He sighed, leaning back in the uncomfortable library chair. "Okay. Usually when something needs to be tied directly to a person, it requires something physical. Blood, usually. You okay with that?"

" _Blood?_ "

Sam chuckled. "Yeah. Sorry, kiddo. I don't make the rules."

" _Well, I guess I'm more okay with that than the alternative._ "

Sam opened his mouth to agree, but Kevin went on, quiet: " _What was it like?_ "

And Sam shut his mouth. Frowned. "What was what like?"

" _Being possessed by John Dee- but, you don't have to answer if you don't want to-_ "

Kevin made his apologies, spun himself out on them while Sam stared at nothing, feeling frantic and nervous and disoriented. Possessed? He'd been possessed by John Dee. And he couldn't remember it. Now that he knew that, now that he went searching for that chunk of memory, that block of time before waking up in a motel bed in Boston, Dean's worried face searching for him, but he was right there, and the way he said _Sammy_ like it was a question, like it might not have been answered the way he wanted it to be - Sam had been possessed and now that he was looking for the memory of that time, the black nothing where that memory should have been pulled at him like a whirling wind-

" _Sam?_ "

"I-" he said, breathless. Sam swallowed, got his head back. "I don't remember much of it. But uh no, possession isn't a picnic. You definitely don't want to mess with that stuff."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then: " _Sorry man. I wasn't thinking._ "

"It's okay. So you're set except for this stone? What'd you dig up as options?"

" _Okay. Um, we tried to keep the list to the easy-to-get stuff. Malachite, mother of pearl-_ "

"That's most useful for kids," Sam said. "You might get away with it, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. And mother of pearl if I remember is strictly newborn infant stuff."

" _Damn. Okay, how about quartz?_ "

Sam made a face. "Quartz is more for healing, and it's kinda weak. Most of the people using it are fakes. It works just like salt, really. Purification, the orderly crystalline structure of the molecules-"

" _Yeah, I remember._ " Kevin sighed. " _Everything else on my list seems harder to get. We don't have like, an emergency fund or something, do we?_ "

Sam cleared his throat. "Promise not to tell Dean?"

" _Promise._ "

"Go to the freezer. I keep a credit card in a block of ice in the back there. It's totally clean, no flags, no balance."

There was a laugh on the other end of the line. " _Sweet. So then what's better? Black tourmaline, jet - I don't know, it just says 'jet.' Or kat...kataga-_ "

"Katanganite?" Sam frowned. "Well. Black tourmaline I think has more of a transformative quality to it-"

" _Yeah, this says it transmutes negative energy to positive._ "

"Right. I don't think that's what we want. And jet, if it's what I'm thinking of, isn't going to protect you at all."

" _This says it blocks all forms of negative energies_."

"Yeah," Sam said, tapping at his laptop. "Well, like you said. These guys didn't get much field experience. Jet will _absorb_ the negative energy. You tie that to _yourself_ and you're in trouble. I'd go with door number three." He clicked send on an email.

" _This says it's pretty rare._ "

"Check your email. I'm sending you a link. We've worked with these guys before. There's a PO box in town you can have it sent to."

" _Wait. I'm mail ordering it? I thought this was a priority_."

"It's fine. I want us to be back before you try anything anyway. Just in case."

" _Well that's completely reassuring._ "

"Luckily, we happen to have lots of experience with ghosts. Just wait til we get home, okay?"

" _Yes, dad._ "

"Anything on the thing we're working now?"

" _No, sorry. I'll call if I find something, though._ "

"Thanks. Hey, Kev. Take care of yourself, okay? I mean it. Eat, sleep. You remember you're human, right?"

Another little laugh. " _Yeah. I'm on it. If you make me the same deal._ "

Sam shook his head, smiled. "Yeah, yeah, deal- Oh, that's call waiting. I gotta go. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

Kevin had barely got his okay out before Sam clicked over, eyes trained on his laptop. "Dean, listen-"

" _Sam? I don't-_ " She sounded frantic, a familiar sound, a dreaded sound.

"Erica? What happened?"

" _It's Stevie_."

* * *

Sam pushed the speedometer as far as he thought he could, considering he was in a stolen car and apparently being hunted by the Feds. The phone at his ear rang four times and went to voicemail, again. But he'd already left three messages. He hung up and tossed the phone into the passenger seat. Pressed the gas. Dean was maybe ignoring him, still annoyed at him for whatever the hell he was annoyed about. Whatever had made him leave Sam in a library. Or maybe he was in trouble. But Dean had a trunk full of shotguns. Stevie had nothing.

It was a mess, whatever he picked. He liked to think that Dean always answered when Sam called, which made his gut clench in reflex - Dean's in trouble if he doesn't answer - but the truth was, Dean ignored his calls all the time. Usually after a huge fight though -

Did they have a huge fight? He remembered Dean acting really squirrelly around him, suspicious, but resigned. That expression he got whenever he disapproved of something Sam was doing but didn't have the power or the energy or the will to stop Sam from it. That pressed together look, the raised brows over closed eyes, the little shake of Dean's head. Had they had a big fight over something Sam was doing, and now Sam couldn't even remember what he'd done wrong?

The more he tried to fill in the possibly missing gaps, the more obvious it was that Dean was hanging onto some grudge - okay, not new. But - but -

But the last thing he wanted to do was go off on his own; Dean was going to assume he was trying to prove himself, and he was going to worry, and honestly? Despite throwing a fit over carrying his own bag or holding his own in a fight, he was worried about meeting this monster again, with only the pistol in his jeans, and with an innocent to protect.

But that was the job. Maybe the only part of the job that held any attraction for him anymore. The dull sense of "this is right" that made the blood on his hands mean something. And maybe he was a monster, and maybe he had missing memories of yet another terrible thing he'd done, and if he went off trying to save this kid, well. Maybe Dean'd forgive him.

* * *

"Hang on a sec would ya?" Dean pulled out his phone to call Sam, frowned at it. "Dammit. No signal out here. You got a phone?"

Margie shook her head. "Had a wind storm, never bothered to get it fixed. Who'm I gonna call?"

"Great." Dean tapped his phone against his palm. "Okay, listen, Margie. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this, but I need to check in with my brother."

"Your brother, the brother you think might be in trouble?"

Dean laughed and looked toward heaven. "Every day of the goddamn year. Yes. That brother. I'll be back. I don't think we're done here. But I'm gonna head toward town and see if I can get a cell signal, swap theories."

Margie nodded. "Trav wrote me some notes before he disappeared. I'll get them together for you to go through when you get back."

"Great."

Minutes later, Dean was speeding down the highway back toward town. Ten minutes from the city limit, his phone beeped: voicemail waiting. When he looked at the alert, he cursed aloud. _Three_ voicemails, all from Sam. He hit play.

" _Hey Dean, I don't know if you're pissed at me or what, but give me a call back asap._ "

" _Dean, Erica just called. Stevie's missing. She thinks he's gone back to the bridge. I still have no idea what we're dealing with, so... call me back. You can be annoyed with me later, okay?_ "

" _Okay, I'm going. Stevie's on foot. If I leave now and speed, I might be able to catch him before he makes it to the bridge. Call me._ "

Fuck. Dean hit the call back button and waited for it to connect. But. It didn't even ring once before going right to voicemail.

_Fuck_.

* * *

"Sammy!"

The bridge was covered in a rolling cold chill. Here in June, in the early evening, a deep wet fog just boiling through.

"Sam!"

Sam's stolen car sat fifty feet back from the bridge. Dean let out a breath; thank God he hadn't wrecked it on the way. And he'd parked it out of the range of the ghostly EMP that had hit them the first time. Good 'ol Sammy, a smarter hunter when Dean wasn't around, who knew why. Dean tried to track him from the car, scuffle in the gravel maybe, but there was nothing.

Until he ventured into the fog to check out the bridge itself.

"Sam! Come on, this isn't funny!" Dean waved the shotgun through the fog like he could fan it away somehow, spun at every maybe-shadow.

"D- D-"

"Sam!" Dean fled toward the voice, slid to his knees beside the shadow of a body, but when he got close enough, it was Stevie, shaking and crying and bleeding from the side of his head. Dean grimaced at the wound, tilted the kid's face to get a better look at it. "Okay, you're okay. Where's Sam?"

"S-Sa-"

"Stevie, focus. Is Sam here? Did he catch up with you?"

His words came out run together. "Sssshetookhim shesaidhecouldtradeand hesaidyes." Stevie looked up at Dean with wide eyes, terror-struck. He breathed in gasps and his face was wet and he was so upset - "He went with her. For me."

Dean stared. Gathered the kid into his arms and sat and rocked him, shushed him, wished it were Sammy there with him, wished Sam wasn't such a fucking martyr - but Stevie held onto his coat and cried hard and asked for his sister and Dean knew he'd have done the same thing, and by God he'd have been forever indebted if someone else had sacrificed themselves to save Sam.

Fuck. Fuck.

The fog faded quickly. A supernatural fog, probably meant Dean had missed Sam by minutes. And as the fog drifted off the bridge and down to the water, it left behind pieces of Sam. His gun, there feet away. A spatter of crimson. His cell phone, cracked and broken.

And Dean.


	4. Chapter 4

**Episode Five**  
" **Time is Gonna Come"  
Chapter Four**

"Oi, runt."

Kevin looked up from the notebook, vaguely surprised to see he was in the library; tablet work had a way of zoning him out. Time to switch back to laptop work. He glared at Crowley. "What do you want?"

Crowley sauntered into the room, looking around as though he'd never been in it before. Kevin rolled his eyes. Crowley wanted something, was worrying something in that sick head of his, probably something to do with -

"Have you heard from Moose lately?"

Yep. Bingo.

"Just got off the phone with him like half an hour ago. Why?"

"No reason. Just checking. Dean-o's keeping him off my radar."

Kevin wrinkled his nose. "You gotta work on the creep-factor, man. You can't just track people-"

"I can, actually. One of the perks, you might say."

"I'm saying you _shouldn't_ track people. I thought you were like mostly human."

Crowley smiled at him, arching a smug brow. "Oh, pet. Perfectly human people do much much worse than track each other. I'm only keeping a look out for our dearly beloved. You might have noticed he's unwell?"

"He's with Dean."

Crowley sat at the table next to Kevin and kicked his feet up onto it. "Ah yes. Dean's done so very well with him up til now."

"What do you want, Crowley?"

"Just what I said. A little update. That's all."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "They're on a case. Finding some monster who steals people's memories."

"Sounds a little low-level for our boys, doesn't it?"

"People who show up dead about a week after they go missing," Kevin clarified.

"Oh."

Kevin bent his head toward his laptop again, scanning through the different flavors of katanganite.

Crowley leaned over his shoulder, and - okay, they'd been okay, Kevin was getting really good at biting down on whatever rage surged up in him and he was drunk more often than not anyway, but just now, with Crowley apparently having nothing better to do than get up in his business - it rankled. _What would Sam Winchester do?_ he thought, and it repeated over and over, Sam's pinched brows so earnest and apologetic when he was basically at Death's door any given moment - Kevin breathed out. Calm. Yes. He turned to snatch Sam's emergency credit card out of Crowley's grasp. "No," he said, smacking the demon on the hand. "Bad puppy."

Crowley whimpered, stuck out his bottom lip. Then the act drained away and he narrowed his eyes at the screen. "Katanganite? Cooking up a spell, mini-Moose?"

Kevin rolled his eyes at the nickname. "Yeah, not that it's any of your business."

"Sam suggested this?"

Kevin looked at him; Crowley looked thoughtful. "Y...eah? Why? It's right, right?"

"Hm? Oh. Yeah. Just. I'd have thought." But Crowley stopped, glanced at Kevin, shrugged. "But what do I know?"

"Uh, probably more than you're letting on, and way less than you think you do," Kevin replied, calm calm, just _stay calm._

"Oh yeah. You're probably right. Sure."

"Knock it off, I'm not telling you anything."

Crowley sighed big. "Fiiiine. We'll just sit here."

Kevin glared at the screen. "Smoky Gray" katanganite was the cheapest he could find, probably because it was the ugliest, and witches these days wanted to be fashionable more than they wanted to live within their means via responsible spending. He clicked "order" and fished out the details for the PO box Sam had set up.

Beside him, Crowley was _fidgeting_.

" _What,_ gawd _._ "

Crowley blinked at him, all innocence, brows together and up, mouth slightly open. "I didn't say anything."

Kevin watched him a moment; for all that Crowley boasted about having invented that innocent look, he sure did seem to perfect it under Sam's inadvertent tutelage. It didn't fool Kevin, but it _did_ remind him -

"Fine." He typed in the address, clicked through the pages of options, submitted the order, then turned in his seat to face Crowley. "Talk away."

Crowley gave him a look. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Sure you do. You get all fidgety and chatty and then you get all jumpy and then someone says something and you freak out and run off into a corner and talk to yourself-"

"I don't talk to myself."

Kevin pressed his lips together in consideration. "I know," he said. "You're talking to Sam."

Crowley frowned at him, but he didn't deny it.

"You're going insane, aren't you."

Crowley laughed, short, brittle. "No."

"Look man. I think we all agree that _I'm_ the sanest person in this whole bunker, okay? And _I'm_ pretty drunk, pretty much all the time. So if you wanna babble about Sam a little bit to me, if it'll stop you freaking out or whatever-"

"I don't freak out."

Kevin watched him patiently, and felt a calm in him he hadn't put there himself. He'd felt it when talking to Sam, too, when he told him that Sam was the right man for the job of the Trials, when he was so confident about it. A kind of calm that didn't come from him, but from ... maybe from Heaven?

Whatever it was, he looked at Crowley and he let it happen. Whatever linked him to heaven and let him feel something he wanted to feel but couldn't - he let it work, and he smiled patiently at the former King of Hell, a murderer, his tormentor.

And Crowley frowned, taken aback, maybe.

"What do you think Sam's greatest sacrifice could be?" Kevin said when Crowley didn't say anything.

"I don't know." Crowley turned his head to look at him askance.

"A book or something?"

"A book." Crowley shook his head, blew out a breath. "I know he's not exactly a _social_ primate, but a book? Come on."

Kevin shrugged. "Some books are really valuable. You don't know."

"I don't think it's a book for Marnie Moose."

Kevin looked up at Crowley and then away again. "You think it's Dean, don't you."

Crowley pressed his lips together. "Yeah but if _I_ say it, I'm a heartless bastard."

"It can't be Dean." They looked at each other. Kevin shook his head. "It can't be Dean. We can't _kill_ Dean."

"Sure we can. I mean he _is_ a bit scary but - oh, right right. You're saying we _shouldn't_." Crowley rolled his eyes at Kevin. "Oh lighten up."

"This isn't a joke-"

"Isn't it? One big cosmic joke? A king, reduced to playing with the puppets? A prophet deciphering jibberish? An _angel_ who isn't an _angel_ , but still has all the charisma of a radish! This whole thing is one giant cosmic dramedy, and you and me and the angel, and those two love-locked psychopaths you trust to protect you - we're all the fools in the starring roles!"

Crowley ended his little speech staring Kevin down, heaving breaths, red in the face, and Kevin raised a brow at him. "Finished?"

Crowley blinked. Twisted his mouth, tilted his head hopefully. "Not even a little nervous?"

"Compared to cutting my finger off? That was barely a tantrum," Kevin said.

Crowley looked away, blinked quickly. "Right. Uh. Where were we-"

"You were losing your shit, I was patiently letting you."

"Ah."

Crowley couldn't look him in the eye. He seemed to lose the train of thought they'd been following, he looked lost and guilty, comical enough that Kevin had to try not to laugh at him. He might have been feeling sort of heavenly about forgiving Crowley, but the part of him that grieved Channing and his mother, that part was having a good laugh at Crowley's pain. Not very prophety. Kevin sighed.

"We were talking about Sam's greatest sacrifice."

Crowley cleared his throat. "Right. Yes. But it's not Dean," he said.

Kevin frowned. "How do you-"

"For the same reason it's not Sam himself. Going to heaven, together, it's basically the only happy ending for them. Whether Sam is consciously aware of that or not, it's true."

"Then he gives up heaven-"

"That won't work," Castiel said from behind them.

Kevin frowned. "Where've _you_ been?"

"Assembling an army," Cas replied, then shrugged as he came into the room and sat in a chair, looking beat. "Well, a large group, anyway." He frowned, sighed. "Well. A _group_. Lethaniel is still in command of company, one that until now has been very loyal to the darker side of heaven. But they're good soldiers. She can persuade them to our cause-"

"What _is_ our cause?" Kevin asked. "What are we even doing right now?"

Castiel pinned him with those unnaturally blue eyes. He was human, Kevin was aware, but did the host body _really_ look like that? Or was it just an effect of Cas' laser focus? "You are our cause. And Sam. And Dean and even Crowley. Protecting this base is our cause. We find out what Sam's sacrifice is and we close those gates. We find out how to reverse Metatron's spell, and the angels can go home." He frowned down into his lap, troubled. "If only we could find a way to fix heaven itself- But that's-" He looked up again, bore into Kevin with his eyes. " _This_ is the cause."

Kevin stared. "Oh. Okay."

Crowley made a face. " _That? That_ gets you tingly? He's a wingless chicken, for god's sake!"

"Not for God's sake," Castiel said, turning his gaze to the demon. Crowley frowned and leaned back.

"Okay. I get it. Scary."

"What did you mean, that won't work?" Kevin said.

Cas turned to Kevin with the same intensity that had made the demon sit back and stare. "Sam and Dean are destined for heaven. It's as set in stone as physics. Sam could no sooner give it up than give up gravity. It's out of his control. It's the same for Dean. These things were woven into the fabric of the universe the moment Sam was born and Dean's soul was considered completely extant."

"But - Sam went to hell-"

"So did Deano," Crowley supplied, and Kevin gaped at him.

" _Dean_ went to hell too? Wait." He glanced between the angel and demon. "Is that a pre-req for this family thing? Because if so, I want out."

"Dean was never going to stay in Hell," Castiel said. "I was always going to be ordered to pull him out after he broke the first Seal. We needed him to be the Righteous Man and Michael's Vessel." He looked pained. "As for Sam... I choose to believe that it was pre-ordained that I would care enough for him to brave the cage and retrieve him, but..."

"But what?"

"The Cage isn't considered Hell," Crowley said, leaning forward in dawning understanding. "Not really, not... _technically._ " He sounded disgusted.

Cas nodded. "The Cage is heaven-created. It's like... a military base. _Technically_ ," he said with a glance at Crowley, "it's heavenly ground, even if it's located in hell's territory. He could have been allowed to stay there indefinitely, and it would have been obeying the-"

"Laws of physics." Kevin shook his head. "I get it. You guys are real bastards-"

"It wasn't what I wanted," Castiel said, pained. "I did what I could-"

"It could still have been the plan, ultimately, to release him," Crowley said. "Do you think the Heavenly parental unit believed Lucie only had _one_ escape plan? He probably banked on Sam escaping when Lucifer did."

"But what would have been left of Sam?" Kevin said. "I mean what's left of him _now_?"

Cas shrugged. "As long as his soul ends up in heaven... anything can happen to him between now and the end of time, no matter what shape his soul is in when it reaches its final resting place."

"Okay, okay, wait. We're off track here. What you're basically saying is that neither of them can go to hell, so that can't function as Sam's greatest sacrifice. Right?"

"Right."

"But what if it _is_? Does the whole spell just not work because the thing he fears most isn't possible?"

"I'm not sure. But I am also quite certain either of them would willingly go to hell for the other. They've already done it. It's unlikely that would be a sacrifice worthy of the trials."

Kevin watched Cas. Maybe he needed to read Charlie's books after all. There was a LOT he was missing from the story. "Then it's back to the drawing board," he said. "Great. Wait. Did you say Sam was born and it completed _Dean's_ soul? Uhm..."

"In a manner of speaking. They do of course have their own souls. But they are soul-strung - you have a number of names for it: soul-mates, the red string of fate. You've romanticized it, of course. It's not nearly as common or healthy as you humans like to believe. No, it's an all-consuming, terrible kind of love. I used to be able to see it between them," Cas added wistfully. "When I had my grace."

"Told you. Love-locked psychopaths."

"Shut up, Crowley."

"It's the sort of thing that saves worlds," Cas said. "Or destroys them. Or creates them. And ultimately burns those soul-strung creatures up in the doing."

"Do _they_ know about any of this?"

Castiel met his eye. "I'm only recently aware of it myself. It is a knowledge that angels cannot fully comprehend, because it requires love to understand. Until now... even the emotionless facts were outside of my scope."

"Angels can't love?"

Cas sighed. "We are composed of love, of course we love. It's in our programming. But it isn't the same as human love. It would be like... trying to track a comet with a microscope. Completely different in scale and direction."

"Are you gonna tell them?"

"I'm not sure if that would be a good idea."

"Oh I'd pay good money-" Crowley said.

Cas nodded with a little smile. "Dean would certainly take it poorly. I think Sam might appreciate the sentiment. But it would be unwise. Better to allow them to go on as they have. They've saved the world already, and if we figure out Sam's sacrifice, they may be saving the world a second time."

"Yeah. Well. If you have any ideas about what it might be, we're all ears," Kevin said, turning back to his laptop.

Cas stared hard at the table. Shook his head after a long moment. "Have you spoken to them? How's this hunt going?"

Kevin shrugged. "Not great. We don't have any leads, we don't really have _anything_. I called Sam a little bit ago to ask about some ingredients for a spell. He didn't seem to think they were getting anywhere."

"And how was he?" Crowley said, leaning forward in his chair.

Kevin frowned. "Uh. Fine? I guess? Tired, I think. God I hope he's not _not_ sleeping again. That was so messed up-"

"Tired huh."

Kevin looked at Crowley. "He's _fine_. He kinda spaced on me, started telling me a theory he already told me-" Kevin stopped. "Oh man."

"What?"

Cas leaned in. "Kevin?"

Kevin reached for his phone. "Oh man." He pressed through the menus to get to Sam's name. "He was telling me the theory he didn't remember he already told me. And when I said ghost decoder ring, he didn't know what I was talking about. Oh my god, he didn't remember being possessed by John Dee. Oh _man_ -" He cut off as the phone picked up. "Sam? Thank god."

* * *

Dean coaxed Stevie into the impala with a promise they were going to his sister. He must have been on autopilot after that though, because he found himself wiping down Sam's stolen car without thinking, clearing away anything that could have been Sam's, down to the single long strand of chestnut on the headrest.

And then he stared at the car, took a deep breath. A sort of tension-wire calm descended, a live or die calm, a warzone calm. And a moment later, he was striding toward the impala, and he and Stevie were on the road back to town.

"You gotta give me something, kid."

Stevie hid his face in his hands. He shook his head.

"Tell me you saw her. Tell me you saw _something_."

Stevie was quiet. Dean pressed the accelerator and hoped for Stevie's sake that Erica could get him to talk.

Erica sat with Stevie on the couch. Dean sat in a chair opposite Stevie, his fingers cold, his belly cold with creeping anger.

"Come on, Stevie," he said, sugary sweet, a glance at Erica to show he was making nice. "You said she told him he could make a deal? What did she look like?"

Stevie shrugged. Rocked a little.

"Shh baby," Erica said. "You're okay."

"D...don't callmethat."

"Come on, you had to have seen her. What did she look like? Blue skin? Seaweed for hair?"

"What are you talking about?" Erica asked. "Seaweed hair?"

Dean ignored her. "Come on, kid. Scaly? Did she have red eyes? Did she _sing_? Did she turn into a fucking _rock_? _Come on kid_!"

"Dean!" Erica hissed, drawing Stevie in for a hug. "I think it's time for you to go."

Dean leaned back. Blinked. "I'm. I'm sorry. It's my brother-"

"I know. I'm sorry. But you _can't_ do this to him. He's _my_ brother."

In the end, Dean went. Because whatever Stevie knew, it was locked up inside his petrified stunted brain - ahh that was mean. Sorry, Sammy.

What he _had_ been able to get out of Stevie was no more than he'd already guessed: Sam had disappeared minutes before Dean had shown up, the unnatural fog dissipating when the monster bitch left with his brother. Ten minutes to get Stevie home, another five to get himself kicked out by Erica, and another five to get back to the abandoned farmhouse he and Sam had been using as a home base. It wasn't secure against whatever they were hunting, but she already had what she wanted, and if she came back, all the better. He'd just torture the shit out of her until she gave him Sammy back, safe and sound. He was already savoring the sensation of vessels breaking under his hands, blue-bruise blossom across her skin, the taut of tendon and the release when it snapped-

Fuck.

Fuck.

He distracted himself by sorting through Sam's research. She probably wasn't a ghost, and Sam's notes bore that out. His preliminary searches for accidents around the bridge had come up with some hits. A fatal carriage accident in the early 1900s, struck out because the woman's clothing didn't scream "period piece." A failed suicide, struck out because no one died. A single-car accident, struck out because the three people who _had_ died were all male, and their monster was female.

Sam's research concluded that she wasn't a ghost, and Dean started pouring through the notes on different water-based creatures. He hadn't been lying, okay? Water and memory loss went together like PB and J, supernaturally speaking. It wasn't a bad call, although none of what Sam was trying to piece together made sense. He was digging deeper into the book he'd found on Sam's passenger seat, _Water Fuglies and How to Kill Them_ or something, when his phone rang.

Or. No? His phone was not ringing, screen dark even as the ringing sound continued. And that wasn't his ringtone anyway- He put his hand into his other pocket and fished out Sam's phone.

" _Sam? Thank god-_ "

"It's Dean. What's up Kevin."

" _Where's Sam? Dean, is he okay?_ "

"No he's not fucking okay. I think this bitch got him-"

" _But I just talked to him!_ "

"When!"

" _Just like forty minutes ago- yeah yeah, thirty-seven minutes ago- shut up! I'm telling him!_ "

Dean frowned as Kevin attempted to manage what were probably frantic angel and demon Sam-groupies clamoring for the phone. "Why you callin' askin' about Sam? You know something? Spit it out."

" _I think he's losing memories!_ " Kevin blurted. " _We were talking on the phone, and he was trying to tell me theories he already told me. He didn't remember getting possessed, he didn't remember about the ghost key thing-_ "

"Fuck." Dean closed his eyes. Tried to calm himself. It wasn't working. He remembered _I don't know if you're pissed at me or what, but give me a call back asap,_ Sam's first message to him before he disappeared. But there was no reason for Dean to be pissed, they hadn't fought. Unless it was an old fight and Sam didn't remember patching things up - Dean packed up the few things of Sam's he'd been sorting through.

Fuck. Just.

"Okay. He hasn't been gone more than half an hour; he left me some messages right after he got off the phone with you, I guess. I gotta figure this out. I'll call later-" Cacophony shrieked through the phone as Sam's fan club fought Kevin for command of the receiver. Cas and Crowley, a couple of little assholes although Cas at least had the advantage of Dean caring about what happened to him. Crowley could suck-

"Wait, wait," Dean said. "Put Crowley on."

" _Dean, what-_ "

"Just do it!"

There was a moment. And then: " _Squirrel? You rang?_ "

"Find him."

There was another moment, longer. Dean _willed_ it to work.

" _Sorry, love. I told you to stop hex bagging him, but nooo-_ "

"I'm not. I mean, I haven't been, not since-" Fuck. "Fuck. It's a witch. A goddamned witch. No wonder she got through the wards. Can you - I don't know. Can you bust through a hex bag or something? You got witch know-how."

" _If I could do that, it wouldn't have done any good hex bagging him in the first place, would it._ "

Dean pounded on the wall. "Okay. I gotta hunt this bitch down. Listen. We're in Beatrice, Nebraska. Look for signs, anything in the papers, hunt down these missing people. It's all about this bridge outside of town. You find anything, you call. Got it?"

" _We got it,_ " Crowley said, sounding far away. Speakerphone, Dean recognized.

" _We're on it, Dean_ ," Kevin said then, and Cas too something positive and creepy and stilted like the way Cas did that generally made Dean smile but just now made Dean growl: "Get on it. _Now_ ," and hung up.

Sam's notes were useless now. Sam hadn't even hinted at "witch," and now it was pretty clear she'd messed with Sam's memory so he didn't get anywhere close to the truth. He kicked the bag of Sam's notebooks away in a fit of frustration. Fuck. Okay. First things first.

She was a person, just a person, someone who lived in Beatrice, probably. He used Sam's smartphone to "google" the names of the vics, what names they had, and try to find a connection between them, some woman they all knew - except they'd done this as part of the routine investigation, and Stevie had said he'd never seen her before, and of course Sam had no connection to any of them. They had nothing in common.

Except for how they were all... uh... what was the polite way to say it? Brain damaged? Sam with his seizures and fucking... super depression or whatever. And hallucinations, and the fact that he needed a friggin' psychic shrink. And Stevie Shortbus, and Travis Stock with his pre-witch memory loss.

Dean slumped back against the wall. He'd have the feeds from the security camera by now, he'd have hacked local PD's files. He'd have _walked right in_ with a Fed badge and a fucking swagger if it weren't for-

" _...possible hit on GPS trace three-oh, report in-coming."_ Static from the police scanner app on Sam's phone, still running in the background. Dean frowned. Then, with all that suit surety: " _...Roger that, we'll take it from here. Be advised: stay out of our way._ "

Fuck. Dean could _see_ the smarmy dick sliding on his dick sunglasses and smirking like a dick. _Stay out of our way._ God-fucking-dammit. Okay. So waiting for the bitch in the abandoned house wasn't going to work. He was out of the house by the window when he heard them kicking in the front door, and he was off down the gravel road in the Impala by the time they found he wasn't in the house. He waited in a driveway screened by the risen dust of the trail he laid for them half a mile up the road for the four black cars to pass, another minute for the sneaky fifth car, and then pulled back out and fled back the way he'd come, back to town.

He needed to get to work.

* * *

And work he did. Sam's laptop on the coffee shop wifi - which Dean had to abandon ten minutes into hacking local PD's files on the missing vics when suits rolled up asking questions of the baristas.

And then behind their last motel, which the cops had left alone after they hadn't showed back up in two days - Dean hopped on the wifi there, but as soon as he got through the barely-there firewall and into the security camera feed off the dam, the laptop contracted some sort of FBI-flavored virus and then the internet cut out and he couldn't get rid of the full screen "you been shut down by the FEDS, bitch!" graphic and wow Sam was going to kill him-

Four hours later, Dean hid the car in the little village of Holmesville, over the bridge - few people lived there, fewer actually walked around. There weren't stores, there wasn't even a gas station. There was a whole lot of nothing, perfect for hiding a classic car in an abandoned barn. He walked back to the bridge with their phones and a bag full of weapons and dialed.

"Kevin, tell me you got something."

" _Sorry man,_ " Kevin said. " _We keep coming up against-"_ And then Cas shouted " _It's the Federal BI, Dean. I told you they were watching us. I told you about my dream. They are looking for you. Dean-_ " And then Kevin was back, saying, " _Sorry. No I got it, I'll tell him-_ "

Dean growled. "Dammit Kevin, what's happening?"

" _I don't know. I don't know. This is crazy. I don't know what to do. Everytime I try to even just_ google _these names, I get blocked by some super scary alert thing. I have to reboot the whole computer to get it to go away, and then everything's fine until I try to search again. Maybe Cas is right. Maybe the Feds are looking for you._ "

Dean cursed low. They'd been wanted before, but they could fight that. They could fight as long as they were together, as long as it was _just_ the Feds they were fighting. But this was screwing with Dean's ability to find Sam, and he didn't know how to deal.

He didn't know how to fucking deal with this.

"Keep trying," he said. "And call this guy Aaron Bass, number should be on the fridge. He's part of this other group, kinda like the Men of Letters, might have connections. Um. Call Charlie too. And hell, call Garth. It's _Sam_ , Kevin."

" _You don't need to tell me that,_ " Kevin said, sounding irritable. " _I'll call the friggin' Pope if it helps. Might be nice if you had a little black book of emergency numbers though._ "

"Yeah, we'll get right on that. Soon as we get Sammy back, okay?"

After _yeah okay_ and _we'll find him, don't worry_ , Dean hung up and sat back against the embankment under the bridge. Summer in June was still a bit chilly with the sun down in Nebraska, and he wrapped his arms around himself, and he prayed Sam wasn't somewhere dying.

Again.

* * *

Sam did not groan when awareness came back. He was sitting (concrete? felt cold, unyielding), bound upright by thick cords at his wrists (around a pipe?) above him, more rope under his armpits and across his chest so that the weight was off his shoulders, off those wrists, off the thick mass of his lungs which nevertheless felt tight and full. He did not groan, because he didn't know where he was or who she was or what she wanted. But she saw when he woke anyway, or she sensed it, or something.

"Hey, sweetie," she said, and she knelt at his side and she pressed a cool damp cloth to his forehead and Sam opened his eyes in surprise.

"Don't try to talk," she said when Sam opened his mouth. He tried anyway, and ended up coughing, spatters of blood onto his shirt. He looked down at himself to take stock. His shirt front was dotted red, the floor next to him, his collar was damp with sweat, he felt sick. His head was already starting to pound. _How long, how long-_

"A day now," she said, and patted away blood from his mouth with the cloth.

A day. Dean was going to be frantic. Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He remembered Stevie at this creature's mercy on the bridge, drawn to her as though he didn't have a choice. She stood, or hovered, or something, in a dense fog, arms out toward him, and Stevie stumbled with a hand out to her, and neither of them took notice of Sam when he shouted. Only the sound of gunfire interrupted them, and she'd been so angry about it until she saw Sam.

"You're going to be okay," she soothed.

She wasn't a troll. Or a mermaid or a selkie, or anything like that, although she seemed to have the ability to create fog. Long brown hair, olive skin, light brown eyes, maybe a little gold in them - fairy maybe? If she were human, she'd be about thirty, thirty-five. She wore regular human clothes, jeans and a shirt, a light jacket. She was passing for human. She could have been watching them the whole time. She could have stalked the streets of Beatrice and they never would have noticed her. Dammit. Dammit.

"What are you?" he said. His voice was gravel. He didn't like the way it caught. "And where are we?"

"Great questions," she said softly. "But it won't do you any good to know the answers." She lifted her hand to his chest and laid it there. "Don't worry. You won't remember any of this. Soon, you'll only remember me."

"Until you kill me."

She frowned at him. "I'm not going to kill you. You aren't like the others. You have lifetimes in there."

Sam shook his head. "You don't want to do this." She got up and turned away, toward a table across the room, and Sam took the opportunity to examine the room while her attention was off of him.

"I do," she said.

"You don't understand-" The room was more like a cavern, concrete-floored, but the walls were like they'd been dug out of the clay-y earth, curved and supported by heavy wooden beams. Two thick concrete pillars held up the low ceiling, and in the corner was a narrow stairs leading up to the outline of a square and Sam thought: _trap door. Basement. Cellar. Crawlspace._

In the glow of ancient light bulbs, the glint off a blade drew his attention back to her at the table, where she stood, head bent to task, cutting with care. The scent of entrails assaulted him. And sage. And an exotic spice mixed with blood and the pieces of bone on the floor around the table and the candle wax and okay that made sense-

"You're a witch."

She turned, mouth twisted. And she nodded.

"What do you want with me?"

"Memories."

"I know - I mean, why take me. I'm already losing memories, to you, I guess. You clearly don't need contact to take them. Why do you bother killing your victims? Why did you lure Stevie back to the bridge?"

She came back to him with the knife then. Knelt with it brandished before her. Grasped his coat, and he winced as she jostled his healing shoulder, his heavy chest, his aching head, and he braced himself for the blow-

And she sliced through the hem of his jacket. Pulled up the little bundle of bone and herb and coal and crystal. Smiled at him. "I have to save them."

He sagged in relief when the knife didn't plunge into his chest, sagged against the wall behind him. Sam's head swam; it had been a while since he'd been able to self-medicate. Nausea was building, his head was pounding. He felt drawn and tired like he hadn't slept in years, starving but so sick, and he couldn't breathe without feeling like whatever air he let go of would be the last he'd ever have.

There were two of her when he opened his eyes again, and she was back at his side with the cloth, wiping the sweat from his neck and she looked worried.

"You're burning up, baby boy."

Sam frowned. Then something fell together, realization sluggish: "The hex bag leeches memories, and you lure the victims back to you so you can retrieve the hex bag."

"You're so smart," she said, like she was proud of him.

"You don't want my memories," he said.

"I need them."

"No. No. Stop, you can stop..."

She rested the damp cloth against his neck again, cool on his fevered skin. He grit his teeth as the pain spiked, the constant companion that crippled him for minutes at a time, worse now because he'd been away from his stash for a full day. His hands shook, clenched into fists, straining where they were tied above him as he breathed through it. Dean's hand on his back, Dean's heavy hand on his back between his shoulderblades where the agony swelled, where was that hand, he swore he'd never bitch at Dean again if he could feel that now, bringing him back from this terrible Trial, the wrath of God maybe for failing, or for being so impure and daring to take them on in the first place-

"Shh shh," she was saying when he could hear again. "Shh shh. I will care for you."

He opened his eyes, forced himself to breathe, to glare at her. "My brother's gonna kill you."


	5. Chapter 5

**Episode 905**  
" **Time is Gonna Come"  
Chapter Five**

She didn't come again overnight. Dean knew because he'd stayed awake the whole time. And the road itself wasn't heavily traveled, or lightly traveled, or traveled at all; Sam's stolen car was still sitting where he'd left it the afternoon Sam had disappeared.

So at six am after not having slept, Dean left the Impala hidden and took Sam's stolen car, still smelling of his cheap aftershave, into town to see what he could see and maybe get three gallons of coffee to fuel another day of searching. He needed to charge the phones, he needed to make sure he had lots of protein bars for when he found Sam. He needed a walkie talkie and an antenna, he needed a spare car battery, he needed an encyclopedic knowledge of this town, of witches, of evading surveillance, and he didn't have any of that shit.

But he could start compiling it.

He made it to noon before calling Kevin. But Kevin hadn't gotten any further and the Judah Initiative had their own problems due to Aaron Bass being basically the only member left alive. _He'll do what he can_ , Kevin said, but no promises, no promises, of course not. Fuck.

At 4 in the afternoon, Erica called him to tell him to meet her at her house.

Her house was _not_ being scoped by Feds. Somehow, she and Stevie hadn't gotten on their radar, which didn't speak well of the suits' ability to do basic research. Erica and Stevie were basically him and Sam's whole reason for being in town. But the scene was clean, and he didn't know Erica that well, but he knew people, and she sounded tired, pissed, but not nervous, not like she was being used to lure him.

Still.

He knocked on the _back_ door.

Stevie sat as far from Dean as possible; Dean obliged by smiling his kindest "for kids" smile and sitting in the armchair rather than the couch.

"A little birdie told me you remembered something," he said. Erica frowned just a bit and shook her head, something _Sammy_ would have done if he'd judged Dean's words unfit. He looked at Stevie, who looked annoyed, and oh yeah, he was a full grown adult, even if he did run a few bars short of a full ditty. "Let's hear it."

"You want to tell him?" Erica asked.

Stevie glared. Shook his head.

"Okay. Then I will." Erica ignored the admirable bitch-fest being leveled at her from big brother and turned to Dean. "Stevie says he doesn't remember her, what she looked like or what her name is, but he _did_ say he knew her." At Dean's incredulous look, she said, "I know. But he remembers knowing her. And he said he remembers there was an accident."

"O...kay?" Accident meant ghost, which they'd already ruled out. This chick had made it through their salt lines, plus Sam's research said - then again, she'd made it up two floors to attack Sam, and who knew if somehow a breeze through those shitty windows had shifted the salt enough - but then what was she attached to, if she could move around so freely -

"Then _I_ remembered there _was_ an accident, a few years ago. On that bridge."

Accident on the bridge. _Fuck_ Sam had found it. And marked it off the list because they hadn't even considered she could have been a witch. Witches didn't fucking levitate, okay? "Got names?"

She shrugged. "I don't actually remember the details myself. I was in school on the other side of the state. I know it's not much-"

"We've worked with less," he said, finally feeling the warmth of hope. "Just tell me whatever you can, and I'll figure it out from there."

When he left Erica's, he had a year, maybe a month, definitely a season. All he needed to do was track down any accidents involving women on that bridge in that timeframe and boom. Sammy back.

Except that the library archives weren't publicly accessible on Sammy's smartphone. And he couldn't hack into them without an actual computer, and he couldn't use the actual computer because even when he restarted it to get rid of the weird FBI shutdown graphic thing, it came back every time he tried to use wifi.

So he tried to go into the library itself, hat, sunglasses - he managed fifteen minutes with the microfiche machine before a couple of suits flashed badges at the librarian in charge. She turned to point toward Dean and he made himself scarce.

Fuck.

He sat in the stolen car in a parking lot in town, sunglasses on, stupid hat pulled down low, watching the homeless man on the bench feed bread to birds. Dean was on his fourth cup of coffee, drinking on autopilot. Sam's smartphone was plugged in and charging, Dean's only access to internet since he didn't have to wrestle the Feds for 3G or whatever. But he couldn't dig into databases on that thing. He couldn't patch into camera feeds. He could only call Kevin and get bad news or run the same friggin web searches for the same list of words and names and come up with squat.

But the homeless man across the street. He was interesting. Dean watched him scatter breadcrumbs, watched him interact with these winged rats like they were pets. Watched him pat himself on the leg like it was a nervous tic. How he nodded to himself, then patted his leg. Chatted to no one, patted himself on the leg. Nod, chat. Pat.

How easy it would be to offer the guy a hot meal, and Dean would, too, no reason to be mean to the guy, right? Offer him a hot meal, and then drive him out to the bridge. Sit, and wait. And wait. And she'd come. And Dean would make her a deal. One screw loose homeless guy for his own screw loose brother. Good deal. He'd even promise not to kill her. Maybe.

No. No. Dean drank his coffee and checked in again with Kevin and called Charlie who told him whatever he was doing had people spooked all over the seedier parts of the internet, where the tin hats lived, and he visited the library until suits started questioning the librarian lady and he made his routine fast getaway, and he went back to the bridge to wait her out again, to beg for the fog to roll in, ready to make a deal, ready to beg the bitch, ready to fight to the death-

But she didn't show up that night either, and the next day, Dean went back into town, and the suits were _everywhere_ and he couldn't even get within wifi range of anything, or sneak into the library for just fifteen minutes of scrolling through archives. He drove out to Margie Stock's place to find it a crime scene, Margie gone, gunshot holes in her front door and unmarked black cars sitting in her front yard. He went back into town, he could barely get a cup of coffee, and he sat in the car again and-

He watched the homeless man feed his birds, and he let their phones charge and he called Kevin and he called Erica and left three messages, and two days later, two days later, _four days_ after Sam had gone missing, there were entire parts of town Dean couldn't show his face in without getting into a reckless car chase, and he'd had to ditch Sam's car on day three and the car he was sitting in now smelled like old cheese and-

Dean watched the homeless guy feed birds. She hadn't come again, three nights he'd stayed awake waiting for her, four days he'd called Kevin on the hour, he'd tried Erica who wasn't answering, he'd knocked on her door despite the Feds tailing him, Feds he'd evaded on foot and by car. Four days he sat and watched the homeless man talk to himself, and feed the birds.

Dean closed his eyes. Four days and he missed Sam. Four days and it felt like years. Four days and _Sam is too sick for this._ Four days and _Sam is gone_. Four days and _I can't even keep him safe on a routine hunt_.

Time for Plan B. This had always been Plan B. Who'd miss this homeless guy? What kind of life did he even have, spending his days feeding birds moldy bread, sitting in his stinking clothes? Compared to Sam, who saved lives, who saved _Dean's_ life just by existing, who had suffered enough, okay?

Dean closed his eyes. Fuck. And if Sam ever found out - But Dean would... Dean would save this guy. He'd make the trade, and then he'd gank the witch, and this guy would be saved and probably not even remember what had happened. He'd... yeah, he'd save this guy, _and_ Sam, and lure her out to be killed in the process and-

Dean opened his eyes and set his mouth, put his hand on the door handle. _Do it now, or walk away, Winchester. Do it now before you change your mind_ -

"Going somewhere?"

Dean jumped, swallowed down the gasp. Fuck. He glared at the red-head sitting in the passenger seat. "What do you want?"

Abaddon laughed. "I want to help you, of course."

"Yeah right."

"In exchange for you helping me, obviously." She put her hand on his thigh, slid it up, lowered her chin to look up at him from under thick eyelashes, full red mouth, calculated to make him react. "You know that I need you, Dean."

Dean gritted his teeth. "And _you_ know where you can shove it."

She pulled her hand away, licked her lips. Glanced out toward the bench where the homeless man sat unaware. "Oh," she said in mock scandal. "Don't tell me. You were going to offer up that poor mentally ill man in exchange for Sam, weren't you."

"Don't think you know me, bitch-"

"Ah ah, Dean. Such language."

"What do you want. _Bitch_."

"For now? I want what you want. I want to keep Lucifer in his cage."

"You just want to be Queen of Hell."

Abaddon shrugged. "So? What do you care? Someone's always in charge, Dean. Luckily for you, I want the job."

"How is that lucky-"

"Because I need you. I need the Righteous Man, Dean. There are things only you can do. That puts me in your debt."

"I don't want you in my debt. And I don't care who's in charge of Hell."

"You'll care if it's Lucifer. You think he didn't have a plan B? He's picking the lock from the inside out, Dean. I should know. He made me."

Dean frowned. He was halfway sure they could protect Sam from Lucifer if it came to it, although that didn't mean the world wouldn't suffer, even if Lucifer didn't have his true vessel. But making a deal with Abaddon -

"Oh, and I can get the FBI off your back."

"What?"

She blinked innocently. "Did I forget to mention that? Yeah. I can take care of them for you. Indefinitely."

Dean stared.

Abaddon smiled. "Ah. That changes things, doesn't it. What are we at now? Sammy's been missing for how long? And you're getting stonewalled at every turn. And rumor has it, they're closing in." She nodded out the window, down the block where a really obvious unmarked car was sitting in front of the coffee shop Dean had gotten his last fix from. "You can't save Sam from behind bars, Dean. Even you aren't that good."

"No. No. Fuck you."

"Maybe later. Focus Dean. She's going to try to keep him alive, but she doesn't know about his little condition. You don't have much time. And you'll never find him like this."

Dean looked out at the homeless man. That plan could still work. But Sam would never forgive him if he got someone else killed. No, Sam would have taken the sacrifice on himself. He _had_ taken it on himself. Dean breathed deep. _What would Sam Winchester do?_ He closed his eyes a long moment. Then he looked at her. _For Sam. For Sam._

"Fine. I'm in. What do you need me to do?"

Abaddon smiled. "Nothing, for now. We'll call this a show of good faith. Give me an hour, and I'll have them off your tail and pointed somewhere else entirely."

"An hour?"

"I'm not a miracle worker, Dean. Buck up, kiddo. Sam's gonna be fine, thanks to you." And she vanished.

Fuck. Fuck.

* * *

"You shouldn't have tried to escape."

Sam looked up at the witch, heaving breaths. "Shouldn't have untied me."

She frowned at him where he lay on the ground, one hand to his bleeding lip, still seeing stars. "You're unwell-"

"No kidding-"

"Why won't you let me care for you?"

"Are you insane? You kidnapped me-"

"You made a deal with me. It was a fair trade, you for the boy whose life you saved."

"You're human. You can't enforce a deal like that."

She smiled, knelt next to him. "I can. Why do you think they all come back to me. It's because they promised to."

Sam watched her a moment. "Is that part of the power the demon gave you?"

She frowned, surprised, maybe a little ashamed. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. Everyone _agrees_ to this. _You_ agreed."

"You can stop. My brother _is_ going to find me. And he'll kill you, human or not. But you can stop, you can run. I swear we'll leave you alone."

She narrowed her eyes. "No you won't."

"We will. We've done it before. Promise not to hurt anyone else-"

"You don't remember. He kills her, Sam. The girl you think you let go. He goes back and kills her. I'm sorry you don't remember, but trust me."

Sam felt himself blanch. Amy? Dammit, Dean - Sam squeezed his eyes shut and pushed it down for now. "I'll talk to him. I'll- I'll fix it. You're human. Amy's - Amy wasn't."

"I have to do this."

"Why?"

She didn't respond, just clutched her shirt at the throat a moment, then she was easing him back so he was lying down again, and she brushed her thumb gently over the bleeding cut on his temple where she'd clocked him in his escape attempt. "I'll be right back-"

He grabbed her wrist before she could pull away, and while his grip wasn't tight - _weak, sick and weak_ \- she stopped and turned to him. "You have a fever. Let me go get something for it-"

"You have kids." Sam watched her face fall. His voice was soft: "You _had_ kids. You lost them?"

"I have pictures," she said. "I remember loving them. But."

"You can't remember _them_." She nodded. Sam let her wrist go, exhaled a sympathetic sigh. "I'm so sorry."

"They're coming back," she said then, staring at her own hand. "For every memory I take, I get a little piece of memory back. This memory of finding that your brother had killed that girl - the desperation of it, the betrayal, it was so _vivid_ and strong - I remembered my little girl's eyes, how they got so wide when she was amazed by something. I remembered the tiniest little fleck of brown in them, the spark of a firework on New Year's Eve the week before the accident. I _remembered_ that. Because of _you_."

Sam closed his eyes. He didn't remember feeling betrayed by Dean killing Amy. But he didn't remember keeping in touch with her, either, or keeping tabs on her like he'd meant to after letting her go. The witch was probably telling the truth about it. But he did remember with startling clarity the feeling of not knowing something he was absolutely supposed to feel. He knew what it was like - in his case, he had remembered Dean perfectly well, but he didn't love him. He imagined it was worse for her.

"I'm sorry that you've suffered," he said, sitting up with effort. He shook his head. "But this isn't right. Do you think your little girl would be okay with you killing people?"

"It doesn't matter. I have to do this, Sam."

Sam went cold. "How do you know my name?"

She frowned again, like she was caught in a lie. She shrugged. "I've been waiting for you."

"What?"

"There's a memory in your head that I need."

* * *

One hour and one minute after Abaddon had vanished, Kevin called to say his computer was magically Fed-free and he was digging up whatever he could using the keywords Dean had given him, and ten minutes of muttering later, he said, " _Bingo. Single car accident on the bridge, claimed the lives of Chris Barnes and his two young children, memorial service blahblah, Chris was an upstanding blahblah, survived by his wife, Ashley Barnes. It's the only accident mentioned._ "

"Okay, so she's not a ghost after all," Dean said. He'd been pretty sure, but confirmation was good. "Awesome. I hate witches."

" _But they're human-_ "

"Exactly. Ghosts are _way_ easier. Okay. Got an address for this bitch or-"

" _She checked out of the hospital AMA, looks like a pretty severe case of amnesia. She probably doesn't even remember where she lives._ "

"Well that makes the memory stealing make a little more sense. Witchy, terrible sense. Find me an address and call me back."

" _But she doesn't-_ "

"Yeah, well, her driver's license doesn't have amnesia. Find it."

With the Feds gone, Dean could have done it himself. But he had shit to do. He had guns to load and machetes to sharpen. He had protective charms to build. He had an assault to plan.

One hour and twenty seven minutes after Abaddon had disappeared, Dean was closing the trunk of the Impala, had hex bagged himself beyond all detection and had tied little protective charms all over himself. He had three more knives than usual hidden on his person, painted with blessed sheeps' blood which he'd dried over smoking sage, little trick from their pet demon. And for good measure, a bottle of water and three granola bars for Sammy, who'd been gone for four days and was probably bad off.

" _She's going to have traps, Squirrel._ "

Yeah, yeah.

" _She's going to have Sam at her mercy._ "

Just try it, bitch.

" _For God's sake, be careful._ "

Yeah, _that_ wasn't in the cards.

" _Okay. She's got a country address - 800 North, 325 E, Holmesville Nebraska."_

Dean grinned. Bitch was two minutes from dead.

* * *

Well, the hex bags worked. She didn't sense him coming at all, or she was ignoring him in favor of doing whatever she was doing with Sam, trusting her traps to take care of visitors. Because her traps definitely detected Dean, and Dean gagged on smoke and waved it away, trying to see through it. The house felt empty, abandoned, although the door itself opened easily, no sign that the hinges had stuck from years of disuse. And there was a pot in the drying rack, and a carton of broth in the trash. So she was here. Abaddon said she was trying to keep Sam alive; Dean could have told her broth was no good, especially if it wasn't vegetable based. Still, the drying pot meant Sam was probably still alive somewhere in here.

A shout. Muffled.

Dean froze, trying to pinpoint it. In the smoky haze of traps going off, a dark shadow moved, inhuman - a spirit bent to the witch's will, or one of those lesser demons that could be controlled, or maybe even a deva, or - whatever it was, his charms protected him and as long as he was still, it passed by him without turning.

So it was slow going, getting through the house, turning ever toward those occasional shouts.

The first floor was deserted. Dean turned toward the staircase, mouth set into a line. And then the familiar roaring wail that chilled him through to the marrow echoed through the house: Sam, in agony, a sound Dean had heard too many times thanks to angels and ghouls and demon blood, and Dean's own horrible mistake in a dungeon where he'd chained Sam up and prepared to take him apart.

And it wasn't coming from above him, it was coming from below.

* * *

"You don't want to do this," Sam said, heaving breaths. The witch knelt before him where he lay sprawled and helpless. Fever burned through him, nausea, an ache that rattled through him even though he was sure the earth was still. She threw another pinch of some black herb into the small fire to the side of them and Sam's back arched as another memory was leached out of him. "Stop, please-"

"I can see her," the witch said. "I'm so sorry. I can't wait. I can't. You're dying, you won't let me take care of you. I need your memories - I can't wait for the hex bag to fill- I can _see my daughter-_ " She threw another pinch of the herb and it went up in a spark, and Sam couldn't help the unearthly howl as some part of him, some deep locked-away part, was torn open and something came unraveled.

He stared at her as she stared at him, her mouth open. He couldn't hear a thing, but she looking like she might be sobbing. A ribbon of red flowed from her nose, down her mouth as she opened and closed it.

"You, you," she might have said.

Oh. Oh no. He thought he saw flame in her eyes. No, no.

* * *

Dean sprinted toward the sound of his little brother's voice, coming up through the floorboards, a cellar somewhere, a door - there was no door leading down from the kitchen, and there hadn't been anything outside when he'd scoped the place out. Sam's shriek led him away from those obvious places and toward a book-lined room, full of occult resources of course, too much like Bobby's when Dean let his mind go on autopilot. He stamped on the floor, willed Sam to give him another clue, another good yell even though he never wanted to hear Sam's voice like that again -

But the shadows now swarming the house, at least four of them summoned by traps the witch had set, were closing in on his location. Beneath him, the ground rumbled. The glass shook in the window panes. Doors slammed in their frames all over the house, and anything not nailed down crashed to the floor in every room.

Dean whirled as through the smoke, a shadow came into his line of sight. It was bodiless - incorporeal - but a swipe with the sheep's blood encrusted knife sent it shrieking away. Dean stamped on the floor again, methodically making his way across the room looking for a trap door or something, and he'd gotten halfway across the room before the shadow showed up again, or another shadow, or whatever. Just as he was bringing his foot down, the thing backhanded him, for lack of a better description, and he went flying into a bookcase. He didn't feel the sting of the slashes in his cheek, just the warmth of the red flowing down his neck. He swiped through the air with the knife, but the thing stayed where it was, hovering over the middle of the room, and another shadow joined it, and two more, and they didn't advance on him as long as he had the knife out, just stayed where they were -

 _Guarding_ that spot. Where the trap door must have been. _Yes_.

Dean went still. The smoke from the traps filtered back into the room with the lack of movement. Dean moved slowly, testing a theory.

The shadows seemed to track his movements.

Dean resheathed his knife, in slow motion, and then after a long moment, moved again. His theory held - the shadows were sensitive to weapons that could harm them, but Dean's protective charms hid him otherwise. Just his luck, the thing he could protect himself with was the thing he needed to put away in order to remain undetected. Feeling not a little naked, Dean sidled around the edge of the room, until he was behind the shadows. For all that they didn't have _heads_ or anything, he was pretty certain they were facing away from him, toward his last known position.

He blew out a breath. Less than half a foot separated him from the nearest shadow creature - _rachsheri_ , his inner-Sam supplied, _a rare demon-like ghost that doesn't require a host and yet isn't the spirit of a human. Old school witches used to bind them, but they haven't been seen in a century_ -

Dean counted down from three, then quick as he could, he drew his sheep's blood knife and slashed through three of them before the fourth one raked its shadowy claws down his side. But pain was secondary, and victory was one more swipe through the air, and Dean was a ghost down a rabbit hole as soon as the specters were gone. The trapdoor was easy to find once he'd pulled the rug away.

He figured they had five minutes or so before the shadows came back and rained bloody murder on them. He didn't even bother climbing down the ladder, just leapt into the yellow-lit hole and came up fighting.

Except that there wasn't anything to fight. Voices, soft, came from the far end of the long low-ceilinged room, from behind a stack of crates glowed yellow light. Sam's voice a low pleading rumble and the witch, must have been her unless there was another victim -

Dean crept forward, silent.

"What is it?" he heard her say, voice a wheedling whine.

"Shh, shh," Sam murmured. "It's okay, it's okay."

"I wanted to see her again-"

"I know. I know." Sam's voice broke, like he was crying, like he was upset and none of it was right. Dean stepped around to watch, ready to step in.

She was draped on him, shoulders up and shaking, one hand on Sam's face. They were just in front of the stack of two mattresses Sam had clearly been sleeping on, blankets and a bowl of broth nearby, ropes slung over a pole above Sam's head, and Dean took in the rope burns around Sam's wrist, the angry welts at odds with the tender way Sam had laid his hand over her back.

Then she went rigid in Sam's arm, her hands clenched on either side of Sam's face, shaking, her head turned to one side and Dean recognized it was a seizure, now he could see the blood on her face. Sam held her to him, rocked her and shushed her and muttered _I'm sorry I'm sorry_ and his eyes were squeezed shut, tears seeped out of them; he hadn't yet seen Dean and Dean felt stupidly like he was intruding.

The tremors abated as quick as they'd come and she was boneless; Sam held her up against him and she cried, "Please, please, I can't take it-"

Sam nodded into her neck. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, and thrust forward, the hand that Dean couldn't see, and she jerked upright and then slumped against Sam. Dean could hear her whisper, but not make out the words, and Sam nodded then, tears streaking down his face, and then he looked up.

"Dean," he breathed, surprised, maybe a little ashamed that Dean had seen what Sam had done, but there wasn't time to unpack it, because Sam started coughing up whatever lungs he still had left, and Dean rushed to him.

"Come on, we got maybe two minutes before her little pets come back." He pried the witch out of Sam's hands, laid her carefully on the ground - some instinct triggered by how even as sick as Sam was, it was difficult to get him to give her up. Sam himself was covered in her blood; t little sacrificial blade red up beyond the hilt where he'd plunged it into her. She was dead. Sam reached out and closed her eyes, and then fell into Dean barely conscious himself. Above them, the entire house had started shaking, maybe triggered by the witch's death; dust fell from the slatboard ceiling of the cellar, creaking and groaning and cracks in the dugout cellar walls, and the whole damn house was coming down-

"Frick." Dean heaved Sam up, got them both to their feet. Sam woke a little, but he was shaky and there was every indication that if Dean hadn't come for him, Sam wouldn't have had the strength to get himself up the ladder and out of the cellar.

 _Tell yourself that, Winchester. Tell yourself it was worth making a deal with a knight of Hell_.

"Come on big guy-"

The ground beneath them shook like an earthquake.

"Dean, wait-"

"You got a hex bag on you?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, but looked over at the little table she'd been using as an altar. A little pile of hex bags sat there. "She keeps the memories-" he managed, and Dean got the picture.

"Okay, hang on." Dean set Sam up against a shaking pillar and sprinted for the table, grabbing the little fire the witch had been burning in an altar dish on the way. He lit up a bundle of dried stems from her herb cutting and set fire to the whole pile. Looked back at Sam. "Anything?"

Sam shook his head.

"You sure yours was in that pile?"

Sam nodded, looking like he was about to slide to the floor.

Above them, doors slammed, furniture was crashing into pieces - they needed to get the hell out of dodge. Shit. He rushed back to Sam, took him by the jacket and heaved him back upright. "We gotta go. _Now_. You remember me?"

"Dean."

"You remember you?"

"Sam," he said, rolling his eyes.

"And you remember what we do-"

" _Yes_."

"Alright, we're outta here. Whatever you don't remember - we'll figure it out, okay? Okay?"

Sam shrugged. The ground heaved and he stumbled half to his knees before Dean could drag him upright again. Sam shrugged. "We don't have a choice, right?"

"That's right." Dean grinned. "Okay, up and out, let's go. Move those legs. Oh, here." He brought out one of his additional hidden blades, a second sheeps' blood knife for Sam. He traded it for the bloodied blade Sam had stabbed the witch with. "Good against those shadow creeps-"

"Rachsheri-"

"Gesundheit."

"Can't walk-"

"Come on, Sammy. You can do this."

"Dean you gotta get outta here-"

"No." Dean pulled Sam around to look him in the face. "No. Together or not at all. Okay? And that's final."

Sam stared, mouth open in his dazed state. He blinked. Nodded. "Okay. Jeez."

Dean rolled his eyes.

* * *

"How'd you know they were rachsheri?" Dean asked, visions of the kind of torment a creature like that could have put Sam through flitting through his skull. They were twenty minutes out of Beatrice, and neither of them had spoken over the music, even though Dean had it turned way down.

Sam, huddled into the passenger seat, shrugged. "She was slicing up rabbit kidneys."

Dean frowned. "So?"

Sam turned one hand palm up on his thigh, the least amount of movement he could possibly spend on _how can you not know this?_ and still get the message across. "Rachsheri, native to this part of the country, traditionally controlled by witches, through the ritual dissection of rabbits' kidneys."

"Sure. _That_ you remember," Dean said. "I didn't realize we were supposed to be up on hundred year old lore."

Sam shrugged again, sighed. "No, you're right. I don't know how she got hold of one of them, let alone _four_."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Okay, don't get all emo on me." He looked at Sam from the corner of his eye. "You good?"

Sam nodded. "What'd Erica say?"

Dean blew out a breath. Yet again, Sam had bid a quick goodbye and headed for the car while Dean wrapped up the case, but Dean had let it go because Sam looked like he was about to fall over. "No offense, but I never want to see you again," he replied, mimicking Erica in a high-pitched not-even-close Erica voice.

Sam snorted. "Sounds about right-"

"Sam though. Sam can come visit any time," Dean finished.

Sam stared at the dash.

"That kid likes you."

"He's an adult, Dean-"

"Annnnd _that'd_ be why he likes you. Erica said you're the only man Stevie has ever reacted to like that. You know how to talk to people-"

"You know how to talk to people, Dean. I know... how to..."

"What?"

Sam sighed, slumped in his seat.

Dean rolled his eyes and checked the rearview. Again. Maybe he was paranoid. He preferred "cautious." But there wasn't a Fed to be seen, not a peep on the local police band, even though the witch's house had practically collapsed into itself. He was fishing around for another topic of conversation when Sam said:

"I killed her."

Dean frowned. "The witch? Sam you didn't have a choice."

"Yeah I did. She was just - She wasn't any danger to me after-" He shook his head.

"Come on, Sam. Finish a sentence."

Dean watched as Sam sorted through the facts and decided what to tell him. It was infuriating. But Sam also looked like he was about three seconds from passing out, so Dean filed his questions away and bit down on the things he wanted to say re: being honest with your brother for once, not being afraid to tell your brother the whole story, etc. And Sam didn't keep him waiting long.

"She took a memory she shouldn't have."

Dean frowned. He remembered her begging Sam to kill her. Begging, because she couldn't take it - "A memory from... there, right?"

Sam nodded.

"And she couldn't handle it, huh?"

Sam shook his head, slow, staring at the dash, a million miles away.

"Listen Sam, it wasn't your fault. She got off lucky anyway. I was gonna kill her either way. This way it came on her terms-"

"I can't. Dean. Stop-"

"I'm telling you it's not your fault-"

"Dean. Pull off up here." He waved ahead of them at a gas station.

"We just got on the road-"

"And I've been tied to a pipe for four days, and my head hurts, and I'm dirty and- Just pull over."

Dean put on his blinker; he wasn't one of those super anal drivers by any stretch, but he wanted Sam to know he wasn't fighting him on his request when he said: "Sam, come on, man. Talk to me."

Sam shook his head, still didn't look over at Dean as they pulled into the gas station outside the bathrooms. "It's nothing, okay? I just. She told me about Amy-" He put up a hand to cut Dean off before Dean could even say anything. "I know. Apparently we worked it out. But I just found out all over again that she's dead, that somewhere there's a little boy whose mother is dead because of me, and I just. Need a minute, okay?"

Dean closed his mouth. Fuck. Ing. _Witches._

Sam reached into the backseat for his duffle bag and then he was gone, hand to his mouth stifling a wracking bloody cough, and Dean thought _fresh clothes_ when he saw Sam reach for his bag, because Sam's shirt was covered in blood from his lungs. But then he remembered _demon blood_ and closed his eyes and willed calm, willed himself not to drag his brother out of the bathroom and shove him into the car. Because Sam looked like shit, and it was clear that four days away from his bag with its mysterious contents had left him shaky and sick and worse than he'd been since Amelia had showed up to shove Lucifer back into a little box in Sam's head.

When they figured out how to pause the trials. That's when Dean would call Sam out on his whole demon blood thing. Because damned if he was going to go through withdrawal with Sam again only to have basically killed him at the end of it.

Yes. There. In the wide world of not-right that was their lives, Dean could have Amy and Abaddon and everyone who'd died because of them, and Sam could have demon blood and that was just going to have to be that.

Sam came back out of the bathroom a full ten minutes later, face washed, fresh clothes, still looking a bit worse for wear, but his hair was combed and he was tucking his toothbrush into his duffel bag - Dean thought of teen smokers brushing their teeth and spraying air freshener to hide the smell from their parents - and he looked a lot better.

Maybe it was worth it. If Sam was alive. This wasn't five years ago. This wasn't a power trip. This was survival.

"Feel better?"

Sam pulled the door closed and tossed his duffel into the backseat. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I just." He laughed and blew out a long breath. "I feel like crap. I'm sorry. I'm fine now. We're fine."

Dean pressed his lips together in thought. "We'll work it out. You know I've done some crap - well anyway, we'll work it out. We're together, we got a home, you know that. Whatever comes up that you don't remember, just know that we worked it out and you can talk about it to me, okay?"

Sam nodded. Dean didn't buy it for a second, but it meant something that Sam tried.

Five more minutes down the road, Sam jackknifed in the passenger seat and Dean swerved to the shoulder saying "Whoa, whoa, hey."

Sam gasped his breath back, sat up slowly with his hands on the dash. Then for the first time since getting out of the self-destructing house in Holmesville, he looked Dean full in the face, his eyes wide, a smile on his face.

"I remember. I remember."

"Everything?"

"Yeah, yeah. I remember Amy and John Dee and that photo of me and Mom I lost in the fire and-" He stopped.

"And what? Sam?"

"The last memory she took. I don't remember that one. I know it was from the Cage, but when I try to - it's just not there."

"Well, hot damn," Dean said, checking the mirrors and pulling back onto the highway. "Just find us enough memory stealing witches-"

"That's not funny, Dean. She didn't deserve that-"

"She killed who _knows_ how many people, Sam-"

"No one deserves it."

Maybe it was how quiet and calm Sam's voice was, or maybe Dean just didn't want to argue, because it hadn't been a serious suggestion anyway - Dean rolled his eyes and faced the road. "Guess it just took a while for them to swirl through the ether and find you again, maybe."

Sam frowned. "Yeah. Maybe."

Dean's phone buzzed. He worked it out of his coat pocket and glanced at the message. He had expected an acknowledgement from Abaddon. He wasn't disappointed.

_Good job, Righteous Man. I'll be in touch._

* * *

Just outside the tiny village of Holmesville, the collapsing ruins of an old country house creaked and groaned as it fell apart, to the east and west as though it had been hewn in half by some huge unseen axe. In the center, in the remains of a shallow basement, lay the broken figure of Ashley Barnes, beloved mother, terrifying witch, grieving widow, in a pool of her own blood. Her eyes were closed, the hem of her jacket was torn apart.

Abaddon flipped her phone closed and gazed at the smoldering flame in her palm, purple and blue licks as the charred bone and witch's aidle burned up. She smiled.


End file.
